Dried plants drawings and descriptions

1026. Dried plants far surpass either drawings or descriptions in giving complete ideas of their appearance. When plants are well dried, the original forms and positions of even their minutest parts, though not their colours, may at any time be restored by immersion in hot water. By this means the productions of the most distant and various countries, such as no garden could possibly supply, are brought together at once under our eyes, at any season of the year.