THE TAXONOMY OF THE AGARICACEAE 
321 
The Mechanical Side of the Herbarium 
The mechanical side of the fungous herbarium presents fully as 
many difficulties as the preparation of specimens in the field. Some 
of the specimens are small and flat, while others are large and bulky; 
some, are tough or woody, others are fragile; some may be poisoned 
once for all, while others require constant attention to prevent their 
destruction by insects. 
The model fungous herbarium contains all the specimens of a group 
in a single series and is at the vsame time neat and easily consulted. 
Let us begin with the ordinary herbarium sheet to which is attached 
envelopes of various sizes containing the specimens. It is never de- 
sirable to leave the specimens exposed on the sheet as in flowering 
plants, although this old method had obvious advantages. In case of 
small specimens that might be lost, they are best enclosed in pill-boxes 
or small elongated paper boxes, or in open cradles with cardboard 
bottom and sides of cypress or cork strips attached with glue. Such 
containers should always be placed within the envelopes before 
mounting. A very convenient paper box is made with a loose cover 
so as to avoid delay in opening it. The more specimens that are 
fastened to sheets, the less trouble there will be. 
For specimens too large to fasten in this way to sheets, boxes of 
various sizes will have to be used and these should be either glued to 
good cardboard, only one species to a card, or placed in a light wooden 
tray that fits the pigeon-hole. In order to prevent the great waste of 
time incident to examining a large amount of material and in opening 
boxes or packets, a set of sample specimens may be mounted in 
uniform boxes fastened to cardboard and covered with transparent 
tops made of gelatin or celluloid. With a set of these samples, 
hundreds of specimens may be consulted and compared in a few 
minutes. Such an arrangement is peculiarly adapted to universities 
and small herbaria where distribution is not so much an object as is 
the determination of specimens. There still remains the odd lot of 
boxes too few to mount on cardboard which can only be placed in a 
wooden tray and listed on the outside of the tray. Such individual 
representatives of different species cannot be distributed at once 
through the herbarium, but must wait until additional material allows 
the use of the cardboard. 
The preservation of fungi against insects has always been a dif- 
ficult problem for the curator. Many methods have been tried in 
