Occasional Notes. 133 
terest in their tasks. The offending paragraph was there- 
fore in no way intended as a slur on the Kew staff ; but 
rather it was intended to indicate, as a difficulty felt by 
some botanical collectors, that in cases where perhaps but 
one species of an obscure family or genus was included in a 
collection, this is often, unless it bears well-marked on it 
signs of special interest, necessarily put aside, as nearly 
as may be in its properplaceon the Herbarium shelves, to 
be examined by some specialist on some future occasion 
when he can snatch time from the more important work 
of examining the more numerously represented sets of 
his own group. But, and this is where his shoe pinches 
the botanical collector, it is often his solitary specimen, 
solitary but all he was able to obtain, and just because 
it was the only one, is of quite special interest to the 
collector, who therefore waits with impatience for a ver- 
dict on his plant and regrets, while he fully realizes the 
unavoidable nature of, the delay. 
E. F. iT. 
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