COLLECTING AND CURATING FRUITS AND SEEDS. 51
In such cases it is wise to harvest the fruits just before they begin
to open and to keep them in a box until the seeds are shed.
Neither are the seeds of the Orchids easy to manage, for they
must be seen in bulk if they are to be seen to any advantage with
the naked eye. The parasites, as a matter of fact, do not spoil
that view although they damage the individual seeds. I shall
however, have more to say about seeing them individually later
on.
I will now explain how I utilize the boxes and the different
sizes that I possess ; in addition to the large black store-boxes
there are four others, two rectangular and white, and two kinds
of pill boxes. The large white ones hold the others which, in
their turn, hold the seeds.
Two of the small white boxes fit into one of the large, which
are capable of holding instead as many as six of the smaller pill
boxes. Each store box will hold 50 of the large white boxes in
two layers of 25 each, separated by the loose board. There
are very few seeds in our own flora that require a large white box
and still fewer that are too big to be put therein ; the smaller
white are far too large for the vast majority, and this accounts
for the pill boxes, of which I use two sizes, the one broader and
shallower than the other. As I can get as many as six of the
smaller and deeper pill boxes into one of the large white boxes
it follows that each black box is capable of holding 300 specimens,
although, in practice, I reckon only 200 or less, and at this rate
a dozen store boxes will hold the seeds of all the British species
and all the varieties too.
I arrange my collection in accordance with the 8th edition
of the London Catalogue, which should be interleaved and which,
in the ordinary way, is quite detailed enough for dispersal pur-
poses ; it is the edition with which I began.
Adventive species, and others not included, are entered on
the interleaves with the number of the nearest ally, plus a small
cross, while varieties not in the Catalogue are given the next
vacant letter of the alphabet or the letter "b" (not "a"),
if none be there already.
If one happens to be paying special attention to any particu-
lar species it is sometimes desirable to have seeds from different
localities or from different habitats, and then, instead of a cross
or a letter, I use a small raised numeral, to distinguish the box