THE ENTOfVSOLOGSST’S 
WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
No. 81.] SATURDAY, APRIL 17, 1858. [Price Id. 
THE STUDY OP PLANTS. 
In the ‘Gardener’s Chronicle’ of March 
13th we find the following: — 
“ From their number it is difficult 
to recollect all the differences between 
one plant and another; it is therefore 
desirable to have the means of com- 
parison always present. Owing to the 
great variety of structure employed in 
systematical Botany, the most acute ob- 
server will always want to re-examine 
the species previously studied. Plants 
must, therefore, be preserved in a state 
which admits of their further investi- 
gation at any time. Experience has 
shown that they may be thus pre- 
served by mere pressing and drying ; 
and hence has arisen the practice of 
forming an herbarium, the most im- 
portant of all helps to botanical science. 
How plants may be best prepared 
for the herbarium we have explained 
on many previous occasions. Instead, 
therefore, of again going over trodden 
ground, we prefer to close our remarks 
with extracts from an admirable article 
on the subject by Dr. Hooker, one 
of the most able and experienced of 
modern botanists. 
“ ‘ Collecting plants and forming an 
herbarium are, at the present day, 
regarded by many able speculative 
botanists as contemptible occupations. 
To point out the fallacy of such 
notions is not our function here ; but 
it is of all things most important, in 
an elementary work, to demonstrate 
fully the subordination of each branch 
of Botany. Collecting plants for the 
mere sake of having specimens is an 
unworthy pursuit, in comparison with 
which collecting for sale is honourable; 
but a collection made with the view 
of study, and an herbarium so arranged 
and kept as to be the depository of the 
student’s knowledge, and the materials 
for his further study, is of more im- 
portance than even books.’ 
“ To ‘ know plants,’ in the full sense 
of these terms, is impossible without a 
large herbarium and a large experience 
in collecting; and it is notorious that 
the love of the herbarium and its 
specimens amounts to a passion with 
some of the profoundest botanists of 
this century, whilst all those who have 
risen to eminence as botanists, in the 
full acceptation of the word, Linnaeus, 
all the Jussieus, Brown, De Candolle, 
Lindley, Endlicher and Asa Gray him- 
self, founded their knowledge upon ex- 
perience in the field, herbarium and 
garden. Specimens and the herbarium 
are means, not ends ; and the true 
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