OF THE FERNS AND FLOWERING PLANTS. 
163 
bear, and they will be found safer guides than volumes of 
•advice and description. 
In arranging the specimen on the drying paper, the 
•appearance it had when living is the first thing to be 
thought of ; indeed, the main object in submitting it to a 
press at all, is that it may retain its form permanently. 
Before all things, therefore, care must be taken not to do 
violence to the plant, or force any of its members into 
positions which they could not possibly have held in their 
living state ; otherwise an ill-shapen, distorted object, 
which can never be restored to anything like its original 
form, will be the inevitable result. For the same reason 
no leaf or twig must be removed for the mere sake of pro 
ducing symmetry, or to indulge a false taste. The ono 
grand point to be kept in view — I cannot impress it too 
strongly on the young student — to which everything else 
must be made to yield, is the preservation of the natural 
habit of the plant. If that is lost sight of, his herbarium 
may form a pretty object in the eyes of superficial observers, 
but it can never be a collection of jDlants by which science 
will be promoted, or a knowledge of botany advanced. 
Of course there are times — and that not rarely — when it 
is actually necessary to curtail certain portions of a plant, 
in order that it may be prepared satisfactorily. Leaves, 
for instance, are constantly in the way, and must be 
removed to prevent them from concealing flower or fruit, 
or from being squeezed irregularly against the stem. 
Whenever, then, amputation is unavoidable, let it be 
performed in such a manner that there may be no mistake 
about it — that, in a word, anyone may see at a glance 
that leaves, twigs, &c. really have been removed. To this 
end let the leaf, supposing a leaf to interfere with the due 
disposition of a flower, be cut off, not quite down at its 
junction with the stem, but a short distance up, so as to 
leave a good portion of the petiole adherent to the plant ; 
and so of a twig, or a flower-head, or any other part, that 
must inevitably be sacrificed. But amputation had much 
m 2 
