2 



plants certain characters are given special importance in the 

 identification, and the plants must be collected when these are 

 at their best. Thus in the cress, sedge and parsley families, 

 mature fruit is of prime importance, and ferns without fruit 

 are of little value. As a general thing, representative speci- 

 mens of a plant are taken after it has been blooming some 

 days, in which case it will usually show buds, flowers and young 

 fruit. 



In the matter of how plants should be collected, there is 

 great diversity of opinion. It may be said that the methods 

 employed depend somewhat on circumstances. No one method 

 will fit all cases. The collecting box of tin is excellent for 

 collecting plants for study in the fresh state, and for collecting 

 the lower forms of plant life, but the average collector for the 

 herbarium has little use for this except as an adjunct to the 

 collecting press. It may be used to advantage in wet or windy 

 weather, for use in which the collecting press is unfitted for 

 obvious reasons. Probably the best press for general col- 

 lecting is made of two stout pieces of the kind of pasteboard 

 known as binder's board, twelve by seventeen inches in size, 

 between which are placed fifty or more sheets of the cheapest 

 kind of while paper, cut eleven by sixteen inches, the whole 

 being held together by two straps, with buckles which pass 

 around it (Fig. i). Instead of binder's boards, the sides of 



Fig. 1. 



