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The rambles and drives which he took in quest of picturesque subjects inclined him to botanical studies, and he began to form a herbarium; the search for plants gave a zest to the long walks recommended by the doctors, which might have become tedious had they been aimless.
To a learned traveller this possibly may communicate some definite ideas: but who else from seeing a plant in an herbarium can imagine its appearance when growing in its native soil? Who from seeing choice plants in a hothouse, can magnify some into the dimensions of forest trees, and crowd others into an entangled jungle?
Not finding these studies to his taste, after a semestre's residence in the university we find him again at Berlin, and there in intimate friendship with Wildenow, then professor of botany, and who at that time possessed the greatest herbarium in existence. Botany was the first branch of natural science to which Humboldt paid especial attention.
The book was full of beautiful relics from tokens of remembrance which kind friends had sent to her, and among them were some curiously mottled, green and rose-colored, petals, which she had designed for a wreath, on the first page of the little herbarium, which it was her intention to prepare; and then, with great hesitancy, and protesting their unworthiness, she repeated these simple lines, which she had composed for an inscription within the wreath.
Yet one thing an herbarium is good for: in looking at it you can recall how they looked, and glowed, and waved in life, with all their silver-crowned mountains around them. After we arrived at Grindelwald, tired as I was, I made sketches of nine varieties, which I intend to color as soon as we rest long enough. So much I did for love of the dear little souls.
He wrote a complete description of it and his type specimens are still preserved in the herbarium of the Museum, where I have compared them with the plants of my own culture. Shortly afterwards it was renamed by Seringe, in honor of its eminent discoverer, whose name it now bears.
Professor Heer had attempted to distinguish it from the living tree by the greater size of its fruit, but this character he confessed did not hold good, when he had an opportunity of comparing all the varieties of the living Planera Richardi which Dr. Hooker laid before him in the rich herbarium of Kew.
At the top, crowning the facade of glass-topped cases like an immense frieze, is the colossal herbarium, the first volumes of which go back to the early youth of their owner; all the flora, both of the Midi and the North, those of the plains and those of the mountains, and all the algae of fresh and salt water.
We must have a weak spot or two in a character before we can love it much. People that do not laugh or cry, or take more of anything than is good for them, or use anything but dictionary-words, are admirable subjects for biographies. But we don't always care most for those flat-pattern flowers that press best in the herbarium. This immaculate woman, why could n't she have a fault or two?
She scrutinized the sparse growth, the leafless bushes about the spot, looking for signs of a struggle, and the question in her heart was, "My God, was he alive or dead?" The thing she held in her hand was a blossom of the pink moccasin flower, carefully pressed, as though for the pages of a herbarium; The bit of paper to which it was attached was crumpled and discoloured.
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