PHANTOM FLOWERS. 



17 



erally classed by botanists under two distinct heads — 

 the vascular, or veinwork, and the cellular, or inter- 

 mediate green matter which fills up the interstices and 

 gives coherence and solidity to the leaf. In under- 

 taking to produce these skeleton leaves, the great 

 problem is how best to destroy and remove the cellu- 

 lar and more perishable portion, Avhile we preserve 

 intact the network of veins or nerves by which the 

 whole is kept in shape, and which perform the same 

 office in the leaf-structure as the nerves and veins 

 within the human body. 



Different parties will generally be found to have dif- 

 ferent ways of doing the same thing. While we shall 

 endeavor faithfully to describe that which is probably 

 the more popular plan, we shall, nevertheless, give the 

 preference to the slow but sure process which our OAvn 

 experience has ' proved to be the most reliable. 



The traveller who visits localities Avhich have been 

 celebrated in history, or made immortal by the visita- 

 tions of the muse, desires to preserve some mementoes 

 of his pilgrimage to scenes so hallowed. The most 

 simple as well as the most usual keepsakes, are sprays 

 of leaves or flowers, pressed between the pages of a 

 book, for future preservation in the album or the port- 

 folio. But all green leaves, when thus pressed and 



