COLLECTING AND CURATING FRUITS AND SEEDS. 53
the room which will be, needed for seeds that are yet to come.
In this genus there are four species : Apennina and ranuncu-
loides, like nemorosa, will go into a small pill-box apiece, and
thus the genus will require three of them, in addition to the
small white box for Pulsatilla. These four will go comfortably
into one of the large white boxes, but inasmuch as that would
allow no room for additions, no elasticity, it is better to use
two boxes.
It is always wise to keep close allies together, and when
separation is necessary to part the more distant relations, so
I put Pulsatilla into the one box and the other three into the
second. If I want in the future to add more Pulsatilla the room
will be there, while in the other box there will be room for three
more pill-boxes or one small white one, after all the species in the
catalogue are represented.
The decision then is to use two large white boxes and to put
nemorosa into the. second. The next thing is to write across
the greater length of the lid of this box the Catalogue number
and the name of the genus, beginning close up against the left-
hand corner, and to draw a line under both ; below this line
the numbers and names of the species it is meant to hold should
be written, but it is better for their numbers not to come directly
under the generic number ; for the sake of clearness, and for
another reason to which I shall come presently, they should
start a little further to the right. I now take a small pill-box
and write on its lid the specific number of Anemone nemorosa
and its name in short, "An. nem.," if no more can be written
there clearly. I put the number in the middle of the lid, the
generic name above, and the specific below it, and then the
seeds can be placed inside, but both number and name should
be written on the bottom too before it is put into its white box ;
lid and bottom should both be compared with the Catalogue
so as to be quite sure that no mistake has been made, after
which the specific number of nemorosa on the lid of the white
box must be given a plain tick ; it was placed a little to the right
for this purpose, as well as for the sake of clearness. There will
thus be evident at a glance not only what the box contains but
also what the collector hopes it will contain some day. It
only remains to go to the record book, turn up Anemone nemorosa
by its number, and enter the locality from which the seeds