Abstract
IN your last number (p. 149) Prof. H. de Vries described a valuable method for making botanical museum specimens colourless; but, as it is more important in many cases to keep the original colour, you will allow me to call your attention to a note in the Berichte der deutschen botanischen Gesellschaft (1886, No. 8), where Dr. Tschirch describes a method for retaining the colour (green or other) on specimens preserved in spirit. He discovered some time ago that tannates and colouring-matters (as found in plants), with the exception of xanthophyll, form compounds with lead and barium which are insoluble in alcohol, and he based his method on this discovery. He recommends the specimens to be put into solutions of compounds of lead or barium before transferring them to spirit, or simply to add concentrated solutions of acetate or nitrate of lead, or chloride or hydrated oxide of barium, to the spirit. I may add that I have tried this method, but I have not yet got quite satisfactory results. My best results were obtained by plunging the specimens first of all into boiling water before putting them into the above-mentioned mineral solutions.
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SCHÖNLAND, S. How to make Colourless Specimens of Plants to be preserved in Alcohol. Nature 35, 173 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/035173a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/035173a0
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