DIRECTIONS FOR COLLECTING AND 
PRESERVING PLANTS. 
I have thought it better to reprint the " Directions for Collecting 
and Preserving Plants in Foreign Countries for a Herbarium," by 
Robert Brown, than to attempt any fresh general directions which 
could only fail to equal these in conciseness and lucidity. I have 
interpolated within square brackets a few minor suggestions, and 
have added a section on the lower plants requiring special treatment. 
I am indebted to Messrs. H. and J. Groves for the part dealing with 
Characese, and to Mr. Edmund Grove for the special directions with 
reference to Diatoms. George Murray. 
Directions for Collecting and Preserving Plants 
for a Herbarium. 
This is a much simpler process than is generally imagined by those 
unpractised in it, and travellers have been often deterred from 
collecting specimens by the time and trouble lequired for preparing 
them in the way that has by many been recommended. 
The chief circumstances to be attended to are, to preserve specimens 
of plants in such a manner that the moisture may be quickly absorbed, 
the colours as much as possible preserved, and such a degree of 
pressure given to them as that they may not curl up in the act of 
drying. 
For this purpose let a quantity of separate sheets of paper be 
obtained of a folio size.* Common brown paper is upon the whole 
[* The size of British Museum Herbarium paper is 17£ inches by 11 Drying- 
paper and presses of a corresponding size should be used, and specimens should 
be disposed so as not to exceed these limits. Applications for a special drying- 
paper should be made to the Keeper of Botany by travellers in little-known 
countries.] 
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