Collecting Flowering Plants and Ferns. 7 



Artificial drying. — Considerable difficulty is sometimes experienced 

 in properly drying plants in very wet regions or seasons. In such 

 cases plenty of strawboards should be used and the press suspended 

 2 feet above some source of heat, such as a single- wick oil stove 

 of the old-fashioned sort, made of iron with mica windows, or a 

 camp fire if nothing better is at hand. In case an oil stove is used, 

 a cloth apron drawn around the base of the press and hanging from 

 it to the stove, at a safe distance from the flame, will lead the heat 

 directly to the press and expedite drying. Artificial drying is to 

 be avoided when possible, as it tends to make the specimens brittle, 

 and care must be taken not to obtain a temperature much over 120° 

 F., as with higher temperatures the waxy coatings of many leaves 

 may melt off, thus injuring the quality of the specimens. 



LABELING SPECIMENS. 



Assuming that specimens are correctly prepared, their value for 

 scientific purposes is in direct proportion to the fullness of the ac- 

 companying data. These include locality, date, .habitat, altitude, 

 collector's name and number, and notes on the color of the flowers, 

 the habit of the plant, whether shrub or tree, its uses, and such other 

 facts as deserve to be recorded. This is especially important in the 

 case of tropical plants. Many, if not most, of the tropical species in 

 herbaria, often those represented by full series of specimens, are 

 unaccompanied by any notes of this sort, and their value is conse- 

 quently diminished. The collection of the underground portions of 

 plants, even of many of our common species, deserves much more 

 attention than it has yet received. 



It is especially desirable that collectors who are traveling in little- 

 known regions should secure as much information as possible about 

 the plants they collect. A label form, 6 by 3^ inches, is used by the 

 Bureau of Plant Industry which provides for field records of the 

 following points : Latin name, local name, collector, locality, habitat, 

 altitude above sea, habit (tree, shrub, herb, woody or herbaceous 

 vine), height of plant, diameter of trunk breast high, flowers (color, 

 odor, etc.), fruit (kind, color, odor, taste, size), special notes (habit, 

 abundance, associations, milky juice, etc.), uses, and date. Any addi- 

 tional particulars can be entered on the back of the label. 



All the specimens of a given species collected at the same time and 

 place should receive the same serial number, and the numbers should 

 run consecutively through all the collector's work. Many collectors 

 make a practice of starting a fresh series of numbers each year, and 

 some have even given the same number to the same species collected 

 on different dates or in different localities, but such practices are pro- 

 ductive of great confusion and are to be condemned. Under each 



