COLLECTING PLANTS 117 
be worthy of publication. Why not try to make 
them so ? 
T am not a collector of wild flowers, and I do not 
attach any great value to a collection of dried plants. 
But I am a keen botanist. I like to see the flowers 
growing, and to watch them as they grow. I take 
photographs of them, and have a diary in which I 
record their time of flowering and any peculiarities 
about them. My friends declare that my collection 
of photographs and lantern-slides is infinitely more 
interesting and helpful than any herbarium they 
have seen. But some of you may wish to form a 
collection of plants, and will be glad to have a few 
notes about collecting, drying, and arranging them. 
For field-work you will need a vasculum, which is a 
flat tin box with a hinged lid, and usually furnished 
with a shoulder-strap. Your specimens can be kept 
fresh in this for hours. You can purchase vascula 
of various sizes from dealers in naturalists’ require- 
ments. If funds are low you can probably get a 
suitable tin box for the asking, and this you can 
carry in hand-straps. In gathering specimens you 
should secure complete plants, so that all their 
peculiarities may be shown in your collections. 
Flowers, stems, roots, leaves, seed-vessels, and seeds 
should all be represented. 
When you return home after a day’s collecting, 
take the plants out of your vasculum, and place 
them between sheets of botanical drying-paper, 
blotting-paper, or, if you have neither of these, 
newspapers cut to size will do. In: placing -the 
plants between the sheets, see that they (the plants) 
are not crumpled ; let the leaves and petals be laid 
