COLLECTING AND CURATING FRUITS AND SEEDS.
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too long to go into any box that can be carried about
conveniently, and minute gauzy seeds that are too
small to be seen individually with the naked eye. In
conjunction with the first two sections it helps more
especially, although not exclusively, to illustrate the
first-instance dispersal, while the seeds themselves recall
the subsequent history.
In practice the plan of curating the fruits and seeds separ-
ately has its advantages when it comes to using them for work :
for exhibition, however, they are, of course, more effective and
suggestive if displayed together, and I have arranged matters
so that this can be done quite easily for a species, a genus, a family
or even the whole flora, as I will explain presently.
I need say but little either about collecting or curating for
the herbarium. I may, however, remark that, as every
entomologist knows, ripening fruits often support a fauna of
their own, so care must be taken, before mounting them, that
a small but succulent maggot or other creature has not been in-
cluded, to the subsequent soiling of the mount and ruin of the
specimen. It is much better to confine the use of the herbarium,
as far as fruits and seeds are concerned, to immature as opposed
to ripe sprays, otherwise the first-instance dispersal is likely
not only to be suggested but actually to take place therein, at
any rate to some extent, thus spoiling what might have been
a valuable sheet and in the end mixing the seeds of different
species of the same genus in confusion. To give an example, if
a spent shoot of the aconite were pressed and mounted, the result
would be neither pleasing nor useful, and it is much better to
dry a half-ripe one and to keep the dehisced follicles separate :
by so doing some suggestion is given of the fact that the wind
and jars from passing animals are responsible for the first-instance
dispersal, and then the spent uncrushed follicles are a reminder
that, as the wand-like axis sways in the wind, the stylar hooks
catch in the herbage here and there and help to eject the seeds.
I now pass on to these spent dehiscent fruits, the collection
and treatment of which is quite simple. They should be looked
over very carefully for unwanted fauna, and those which are
quite empty or can be emptied easily should be chosen and cut
off with a short stalk.
The chief object is to show plainly the dehiscence or frag-