P van Rijckevorsel wrote:

I am afraid I disagree here. Dried plants look different from live ones.
There appears to be no shortage of characters that are easily visible on
live plants but are hard to make out on dried plants. Also a great deal of
the fun goes out of it if only dried plants are handled.

You're right that dried plants look different than live ones. Just
speaking for myself, I feel that I have learned more by going through
the process of examining in the field, photographing, collecting,
drawing, drying, describing, and vouchering, than if I just sat in the
meadow with a flora and examined plants through a hand lens. Also I
think remembering how a plant looked when collected, and how it looks
dried and mounted on a voucher, helps me visualize what a old, vouchered
plant may have looked like when collected. This has particularly
helpful in one of my current projects wherein I am reviewing a
collection of plants made in 1940 in one canyon of an area now in Mojave
National Preserve.

--
Tom Schweich
http://www.schweich.com Day: 415-545-3644