>
> I've seen very fine specimens of dried Nepenthes pitchers at
> the herbarium in Kinabalu Park. They use some sort of oven to
> dry them. Unfortunately I don't know much about the process--must
> be a special low-humidity drying oven.
>
> Perry Malouf
I've never heard of this as a way of preserving specimens, seems
to me that they'd be too brittle after this process. Were the pitchers
compressed before being dried? I know the herbarium here presses their
plant specimens before mounting them, sort of like a sophisticated book
that kids use to press their tree leaves! Also, freeze-drying is a
common process used to preserve herbarium specimens. In this case, the
plant is frozen, and then all the water sublimated out via freeze drying
and voila, you're left with a dried specimen.
Just my opinion.
Chris Teichreb