COLLECTING AND CURATING FRUITS AND SEEDS. 47
ating at the end of a long search to find it in its right place after
all!
I now pass on to the things that I have ventured, in defiance
of morphological orthodoxy, to lump together as seeds because
they are the things normally sown. I am dealing especially
with their dispersal, but I am well aware that all that is dispersed
with the seeds in the first instance is not always sown. There
are such things as succulent fruits of various sorts, which are
difficult to deal with.
I believe the wiser course is not to attempt to preserve them,
although there are a few which, if left in a well-ventilated box,
prove more or less worthy of a place in the collection and when
quite dry may be put into the green boxes. Among them
are Actaea and Asparagus ; the former which is black by nature
keeps its colour, but shrinks, while the latter, although retaining
its shape, turns black from its normal scarlet ; others will keep
both shape and colour for a long time, although the tint will
change and, in my opinion, a good coloured or even uncoloured
illustration of a berry is almost always more serviceable than
the real thing in a state of desiccation. I may add that I have
been trying, but have not yet succeeded, to find a way to pre-
serve them satisfactorily in alcohol or formalin.
Such dangerous subjects as these must be allowed to dry
separately, each in an airy box of its own, for they are very apt
to go mouldy suddenly, without any visible warning and, further-
more, they have an objectionable habit of emitting a curiously
penetrating and unpleasant, even if not very strong, smell ; their
seeds should, of course, be curated separately in Section 3,
for they have a history of their own after the first-instance agent
has done with them.
In addition to succulent fruits there are other instances
in our own flora of dispersal being aided and abetted by parts
of the plant that are not sown with the seed. I referred just
now to the great interest of the Caryophyllaceae, and although
I do not know many such instances, this Family supplies more
than one, as, for example, the Sea Campion and some of the
Spurreys of the genus Lepigonum. In the former the bladdery
calyx, after being shed, acts as a balloon and gets blown about,
dropping the seeds here and there in its travels, while in the
latter the capsule breaks up into its component carpels, which