CHAP. IV. COLLECTION, PRESERVATION, AND DETERMINATION OF PLANTS

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224. Plants can undoubtedly be most easily and satisfactorily examined when freshly gathered. But time will rarely admit of this being done, and it is moreover desirable to compare them with other plants previously observed or collected. Specimens must, therefore, be selected for leisurely observation at home, and preserved for future reference. A collection of such specimens constitutes a Herbarium.

225. A botanical Specimen, to be perfect, should have root, stem, leaves, flowers (both open and in bud), and fruit (both young and mature). It is not however, always possible to gather such complete specimens, but the collector should aim at completeness. Fragments, such as leaves without flowers, or flowers without leaves, are of little or no use.

226. If the plant is small (not exceeding 15 in.) or can be reduced to that length by folding, the specimen should consist of the whole plant, including the principal part of the root. If it be too large to preserve the whole, a good flowering branch should be selected, with the foliage as low down as can be gathered with it; and one or two of the lower stem-leaves or radical leaves, if any, should be added, so as to preserve as much as possible of the peculiar aspect of the plant.

227. The specimens should be taken from healthy uninjured plants of a medium size. Or if a specimen be gathered because it looks a little different from the majority of those around it, apparently belonging to the same species, a comparison of the more prevalent form should be taken from the same locality for comparison.

228. For bringing the specimens home, a light portfolio of pasteboard, covered with calico or leather, furnished with straps and buckles for closing, and another for slinging on the shoulder, and containing a few sheets of stout coarse paper, is better than the old-fashioned tin box (except, perhaps, for stiff prickly plants and a few others). The specimens as gathered are placed between the leaves of paper, and may be crowded together if not left long without sorting.

229. If the specimen brought home be not immediately determined when fresh, but dried for future examination, a note should be taken of the time, place, and situation in which it was gathered; of the stature, habit, and other particulars relating to any tree, shrub, or herb of which the specimens is only a portion; of the kind of root it has; of the colour of the flower; or of any other particulars which the specimen itself cannot supply, or which may be lost in the process of drying. These memoranda, whether taken down in the field, of from the living specimen when brought home, should be written on a label attached to the specimen or preserved with it.

230. To dry specimens, they are laid flat between several sheets of bibulous paper, and subjected to pressure. The paper is subsequently changed at intervals, until they are dry.

231. In laying out the specimen, care should be taken to preserve the natural position of the parts as far as consistent with the laying flat. In general, if the specimen is fresh and not very slender, it may be simply laid on the lower sheet, holding it by the stalk and drawing it slightly downwards; then, as the upper sheet is laid over, if it be slightly drawn downwards as it is pressed down, it will be found, after a few trials, that the specimen will have retained a natural form with very little trouble. If the specimen has been gathered long enough to have become flaccid, it will require more care in laying the leaves flat and giving the parts their proper direction. Specimens kept in tin boxes will also often have taken unnatural bends, which will require to be corrected.

232. If the specimen is very bushy, some branches must be thinned out, but always so as to show where they have been. If any part, such as the head of a thistle, the stem of an Orobranche, or the bulb of a Lily, be very thick, a portion of what is to be the underside of the specimen may be sliced off. Some thick specimens may be split from top to bottom before drying.

233. If the specimen be succulent or tenacious of life, such as a Sedum or an Orchis, it may be dipped in boiling water all but the flowers. This will kill the plant at once, and enable it to be dried rapidly, losing less of its colour or foliage that would otherwise be the case. Dipping in boiling water is also useful in the case of Heaths and other plants which are apt to shed their leaves during the process of drying.

234. Plants with very delicate corollas may be placed between single leaves of very thing unglazed tissue-paper. In shifting these plants into try paper the tissue-paper is not to be removed, but lifted with its contents on to the dry paper.

235. The number of sheets of paper to be placed between each specimen or sheet of specimens, will depend, on the one hand, on the thickness and humidity of the specimens; in the other hand, on the quantity and quality of the paper one has at command. The more and the better the paper, the less frequently will it be necessary to change it, and the sooner the plants will dry. The paper ought to be coarse, stout, and unsized. Common blotting-paper is much too tender.

236. Care must be taken that the paper used is well dried. If it be likewise hot, all the better; but it must then be very dry; and wet plants put into hot paper will require changing very soon, to prevent their turning black, for hot damp without ventilation produces fermentation, and spoils the speciments.

237. For pressing plants, various more or less complicated and costly presses are made. Note is better than a pair of boards the size of the paper, and a stone or other heavy weight upon them if at home, or a pair of strong leather straps round them if travelling. Each of these boards should be double, that is, made of two layers of thin boards, the opposite way of the grain, and joined together by a row on clenched brads round the edge, without glue. Such boards, in deal, rather less than half an inch thick (each layer about 2½ lines), will be found light an durable.

238. It is useful also to have extra boards of pasteboards the size of the paper, to separate thick plants from thin one, wet ones from those nearly dry, etc. Open wooden frames with cross-bars, of frames of string wire-work lattice, are still better than boards for this purpose, as accelerating the drying by promoting ventiliation.

239. The more frequently the plants are shifted into dry paper the better. Excepting for very stiff or woody plants, the first pressure should be light, and the first shifting, if possible, after a few hours. Then, or at the second shifting, when the specimens will have lost their elasticity, will be the time for putting right any part of specimen which may have taken a wrong fold or a bad direction. After this the pressure may be gradually increased, and the plants left from one to several days without shifting. The exact amount of pressure to be given will depend on the consistence of the specimens, and the amount of paper. It must only be borne in mind that too much pressure crushes the delicate parts, too little allows them to shrivel, in both cases interfering with their future examination.

240. The most convenient specimens will be made, if the drying-paper is the same size as that of the herbarium in which they are to be kept. That of writing demy, rather more than 16 inches by 16½ inches, is a common and very convenient size. A small size reduces the specimens too much, a large size is both costly and inconvenient for use.

241. When the specimens are quite dry and stiff, they may be packed up in bundles with a single sheet of paper between each layer, and this paper need not be bibulous. The specimens may be placed very closely on the sheets, but not in more than one layer on each sheet, and care must be taken to protect the bundles by sufficient covering from the effects of external moisture of the attacks of insects.

242. In laying the specimens into the herbarium, no more than one species should ever be fastened on one sheet of paper, although several specimens of the same species may be laid side by side. And throughout the process of drying, packing, and laying in, great care must be taken that the labels be not separated from the specimens they belong to.

243. To examine or dissect flowers of fruits in dried specimens it is necessary to soften them, If the parts are very delicate, this is best done by gradually moistening them in cold water; in most cases, steeping them in boiling water or in steam is much quicker. Very hard fruits and seeds will require boiling to be able to dissect them easily.

244. For dissecting and examining flowers in the field, all that is necessary is a penknife and a pocket-lens of two or three glasses from 1 to 2 inches focus. At home it is more convenient to have a mounted lens or simple microscope, with a stage holding a glass plate, upon which the flowers may be laid; and a pair of dissectors, one of which should be narrow and pointed, or a mere point, like a thick needle, in a handle; the other should have a pointed blade, with a sharp edge, to make clean sections across the ovary. A compound microscope is rarely necessary, except in cryptogamic botany and vegetable anatomy. For the simple microscope, lenses of ¼, ½, 1, and 1½ inches focus are sufficient.

245. To assist the student in determining or ascertaining the name of a plant belonging to a Flora, analytical tables should be prefixed to the Orders, Generas, and Species. These tables should be so constructed as to contain, under each bracket, or equally indented, two (rarely three or more) alternatives as nearly as possible contradictory or incompatible with each other, each alternative referring to another bracket, or having under it another pair of alternatives further indented. The student having a plant to determine, will first take the general table of Natural Orders, and examining his plant at each step to see which alternative agrees with it, will be led on to the Order to which it belongs, he will then compare it with the detailed character of the Order given in the text. If he agrees, he will follow the same course with the table of the genera of that Order, and again with the table of species of the genus. But in each case, if he finds that his plant does not agree with the detailed description of the genus or species to which he has thus been referred, he must revert to the beginning and carefully, go through every step of the investigation before he can be satisfied. A fresh examination of his specimen, or of others of the same plant, a critical consideration of the meaning of every expression in the characters given, may lead him to detect some minute point overlooked or mistaken, and put him into the right way. Species vary within limits which it is often very difficult to express in words, and it proves often impossible, in framing these analytical tables, so to divide the genera and species, that those which come under one alternative should absolutely exclude the others, In such doubtful cases both alternatives must be tried before the student can come to the conclusion that his plant is not contained in the Flora, or that it is erroneously described.

246. In those Floras where analytical tables are not given, the student is usually guided to the most important or prominent characters of each genus or species, either by a general summary prefixed to the genera of an Order to the species of the genus, for all such genera or species; or by a special summary immediately preceding the detailed description of each genus or species. In the latter case this summary is called a diagnosis. Or sometimes the important characters are only indicated by italicizing them in the details description.

247. It may also happen that the specimen gathered may present some occasional or accidental anomalies peculiar to that single one or to a very few individuals, which may prevent the species from being at once recognised by its technical characters. It may be useful here to point out a few of these anomalies which the botanist may be most likely to meet with. For this purpose we may divide them into two classes, viz.

(1) Aberrations from the ordinary type of appearance of a species for which some general cause may be assigned.

A bright, light, and open situation, particularly at considerable elevations above the sea, or at high latitudes, without too much wet or drought, tends to increase the size and heighten the colour of flowers, in proportion to the stature and foliage of the plant.

Shade, on the contrary, especially if accompanied by richness of soil and sufficient moisture, tends to increase the foliage and draw up the stem, but to diminish the number, size and colour of the flowers. A hot climate and dry situation tend to increase the hairs, prickles, and other productions of the epidermis, to shorten and stiffen the branches, rendering thorny plants yet more spinous. Moisture in a rich soil has a contrary effect.

The neighbourhood of the sea, or a saline soil or atmosphere, imparts a thicker and more succulent consistence to the foliage and almost every part of the plant, and appears not unfrequently to enable plants usually annual to live through the winter. Flowers in a maritime variety are often much fewer, but not smaller.

The luxuriance of plants growing in a rich soil, and dwarf stunted character of those crowded in poor soils, are too well-known to need particularizing. It is also an everyday observation how gradually the specimens of a species between dwarf and stunted as we advance into the cold damp regions of the summits of high mountain-ranges, or into high northern latitudes; and yet it is frequently from the want of attention to these circumstances that numbers of false species have been added to our Enumerations and Floras. Luxuriance entails not only increase of size to the whole plant, or of particular parts, but increase of the number in branches, in leaves, or leaflets of a compound leaf; or it may diminish the hairiness of the plant, induce thorns to grow out into branches, etc.

Capsules which, while growing, lie close upon the ground, will often become larger, more succulent, and less readily dehiscent, than those which are not so exposed to the moisture of the soil.

Herbs eaten down by sheep or cattle, or crushed underfoot, or otherwise checked in their growth, or trees or shrubs cut down to the ground, if then exposed to favourable circumstances of soil and climate, will send up luxuriant side-shoots, often so different in the form of their leaves, in their ramification and inflorescence, as to be scarcely recognisable for the same species.

Annuals which have germinated in spring, and flowered without check, will often by very different in aspect from individuals of the same species, which, having germinated later, are stopped by summer droughts or the approach of winter, and only flower the following season upon a second growth. The latter have often been mistaken for perennials.

Hybrids, or crosses between two distinct species, come under the same category of anomalous specimens from a known cause. Frequent as they are in gardens, where they are artificially produced, they are probably rare in nature, although on this subject there is much diversity of opinion, some believing them very frequent, others almost denying their existence. Absolute proof of the origin of a plant found wild, is of course impossible; but is pretty generally agreed that the following particulars must always co-exist in a wild hybrid. It partakes of the characters of its two parents; it is to be found isolated, or almost isolated, in places where the two parents are abundant; if there are two or three, they will generally be dissimilar from each other, one partaking more of one parent, another of the other; it seldom ripens good seed; it will never be found where one of the parents grows alone.

When two supposed species grown together, intermixed with numerous intermediates bearing good seed, and passing more or less gradually from one to the other, it may generally be concluded that the whole are mere varieties of one species. The beginner, however, must be very cautious to set down a specimen as intermediate between two species, because it appears to be so in some, even the most striking characters, such as stature and foliage. Extreme varieties of one species are connected together by transitions in all their characters, but these transitions are not all observable in the same species. The observation of a single intermediate is therefore of little value, unless it be one link in a long series of intermediate forms, and, when met with, should lead to the search for the other connecting links.

(2) Accidental aberrations from the ordinary type, that is, those of which the cause is unknown.

These require the more attention, as they may sometimes lead the beginner far astray in his search for the genus, whilst the aberrations above mentioned, as reducible more or less to general laws, affect chiefly the distinction of species.

Almost all species with coloured flowers are liable to occur occasionally with them all white.

Many may be found even a wild state with double flowers, that is, with a multiplication of petals.

Plants which have usually conspicuous petals will occasionally appear without any at all, either to the flowers produced at particular seasons, or to all the flowers of individual plants, or the petals may be reduced to narrow slips.

Flowers usually very irregular, may, on certain individuals, lose more or less of their irregularity, or appear in some very different shape. Spurs, for instance, may disappear, or be produced on all instead of one only of the petals.

One part may occasionally added to, or subtracted from, the usual number of parts in each floral whorl, more especially in regular polypetalous flowers

Plants usually monoecious or dioecious may become occasionally hermaphrodite, or hermaphrodite plants may produce occasionally unisexual flowers by the abortion of the stamens or of the pistils.

Leaves cut or divided where they are usually entire, variegated or spotted where they are usually of one colour, or the reverse, must also be classed among those accidental aberrations which the botanist must always be on his guard against mistaking for specific distinctions.

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