They can be better prepared in Paris than in travelling, as they often require much care, unless the traveller is skilled in the art. Samples preserved in alcohol would be useful for anatomical researches.
Before drying the small kind in the same manner in the open air, all the sea water should be pressed out, by squeezing them gently, and absorbing it with brown paper.
The most of the other criptogamous plants, such as the fern, mosses, lichens, mushrooms large and small, are prepared in herbals as other vegetables.
The only proper way to preserve the pulpy mushroom is alcohol, or wrapping them in flax or cotton; but a note or sketch should be made of their colors, for only their form and structure are thus preserved. Young specimens of these plants are preferable.
However the collections we have spoken of are made, a label should be attached to each of the specimens indicating:
1o The place where the plant was found, and if the place is little known, its position with relation to one that is;
2o The time of the gathering of the specimens, whether in flower or fruit;
3o The name the plant bears, taking care to have it repeated several times, and its meaning should be added, whenever it is known;
4o The uses of the plant in domestic economy, the arts or medicine;
5o The color of the different parts and particulary that of the flower, its odor, the consistence of the fruit, and the manner it opens, when ripe; in fine, all the phenomena relative to the plant;