16 



FIFTH PAPER— ARRANGEMENT. 



FTER our plants have been properly mounted there 

 comes the work of arrang-in^ them in the herbarium 

 in such manner that they may be easily and quickly 

 examined. If plants were assembled without order 

 or system, the larg-er the herbarium became the g-reater would 

 be the difficulty of finding a required specimen ; but by a 

 proper arrangement it is possible to turn to any given speci- 

 men almost as quickly as one would turn to a word in the 

 dictionary. This being the case, it might be supposed that all 

 our large herbariums are arranged upon some uniform plan 

 of this kind, but unfortunately most of them are not. The 

 botanist usually needs a guide book when visiting a strange 

 herbarium. 



In this day of identifying plants by comparisons with 

 authentic specimens, a merely alphabetical arrangement of 

 families, genera and species will not do, for the reason that 

 this would almost certainly separate closely related forms. In 

 his studies, the botanist is saved an infinite amount of time 

 and labor if allied species are placed together. But if they 

 are so placed, one who is not acquainted with the systematic 

 arrangement of the species, may have much trouble in finding 

 the half dozen members of the genus with which he is fa- 

 miliar. Confusion, therefore, is sure to exist when either the 

 systematic or alphabetical arrangement alone is followed. A 

 combination of the two is much the best. 



In order ^ that all may understand the working of such a 

 scheme, let me sketch its application in the case of a large 

 herbarium. Smaller herbariums can modify the plan to suit 

 their needs. In the ideal herbarium, then, each species is 

 placed as close to the next related species as it is possible to 

 do in a linear arrangement. The sequence now generally fol- 

 lowed is that of Engler and Prantl's 'Tflanzenfamilien" al- 

 though there are still many herbariums arranged after systems 

 long out of date. Leaving out of the question lower forms 



