The Glass Menagerie, Botanical Style

Note:  Somehow "Botanical Garden" doesn't have the same feel as "zoo" or "menagerie" to me so, in naming this blog post, I borrowed the title of a famous play and took some serious license with it....

These days we have digital cameras to record plant details.  With their immediate results and cheap cost per image, these wonderful cameras join a long history of technologies and methods with which we've tried to capture the beauty and uniqueness of the plant world to learn about the variety of species and to share our knowledge of plants with others.

Over a hundred years ago, the methods and technologies of recording plant information were much fewer.  The classic methods were written descriptions, botanical drawings, and pressed plants.  All of these methods, while still valuable, were limited.  True 3-D specimens were not possible.  Colors faded.  Visualization from written reports was limited.  Once upon a time, though, several men conspired to find another way, financed by a wealthy mother and daughter....

In the late 1800's, Harvard began to develop a Botanical Museum.  Prof. George Goodale, its first director, wanted to create lifelike models of plants for display, but the only methods for modeling that he knew about were relatively crude, either papier-mache or wax.  When Prof. Goodale heard of Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka, a father and son team of glass artisans who lived in Germany and created exquisite marine invertebrate models from glass, he traveled to their home to meet them and to see their work firsthand.

The Blaschkas' glass work was, indeed, amazing, so Prof. Goodale talked them into creating a few plant specimens for the newly developing Harvard Botanical Museum.  These specimens were so exquisite that a wealthy Bostonian woman and her daughter offered to finance an entire collection of glass botanical specimens as a memorial to Harvard alumnus, Dr. Charles Eliot Ware.  The results of this combination of generosity and artistry are available for all of us to see, if we have the opportunity and desire to visit the Harvard Museum of Natural History, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

When I heard about the Glass Flowers Collection recently, I decided this was definitely something I might enjoy glancing over.  We were heading to Boston to visit our son for Thanksgiving, so I had an opportunity to "Seize the Day!", so to speak.  Greg and Sean both indicated an interest as well, so last Thursday we headed over to Harvard Square on the T and wandered across the Harvard campus until we found the Museum of Natural History.

Although not botanical, the first thing that caught our attention as we entered the museum was a glass case with 3 bird skeletons in it:  a rhea, a great auk, and...a dodo.  This is our son, Sean, standing by the case to give you a sense of scale.  The dodo is the medium sized bird in the middle.

It was quite sobering to stand a few feet from the actual remains of an animal that lived fairly recently and whose entire species is now extinct, due totally to human greed and arrogance.

After pausing for a while to take in the enormity of meeting a dodo, even if it was just a skeleton, we opened the door and went into the Glass Flowers Collection.  Where do I begin to tell you about it?

The collection is exquisite.  Truly.  Even after 100+ years.  As difficult as it is to believe, the specimens don't look like glass.  They are all life sized and they range in type from trees (showing leaves, twigs, flowers, and fruits or nuts) to flowers to grasses to cacti.  There are a few aquatic plants.  There are orchids.  A few of the specimens even have pest species shown as part of the display.  Some of the colors are a bit faded and there is a tiny bit of breakage, but overall the condition of these delicate works of art seems pristine.

One of the first specimens to catch my eye was this pitcher plant.  Each of the "pitchers" is about 9" long.

Other southern species included sweet azalea, Rhododendron arborescens, ...

...and mountain laurel, Kahlmia latifolia.

There were several clematis species, including two of my favorites, Clematis texensis and Clematis crispa....

Note the fine petals on the blossoms of the fringetree, Chionanthus virginicus!

The beautiful arching of the Canada goldenrod, Solidago canadensis, panicle is perfect, ...

...as is the upright stiffness of the showy penstemon, Penstemon spectabilis, ...

...and the clusters of swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata, blossoms at different stages of opening.

Even the spines of the candy barrelcactus, Ferocactus wizlizeni, seem perfect, in both their individuality and their totality....

The accompanying sections of the ovaries with their developing embryos (seeds) caught my eye in their fascinating symmetry.  I find my interest in the plant families and their identifying characteristics ignited after seeing this exhibit.

How did these 2 artisans capture the living details of these plants, especially when so many of the plants live and thrive half a world away from where they lived and worked?  This was well before color photography.

How did these specimens survive shipment from Germany to Boston?

Here is a photo of the type of equipment the Blaschkas used to create these glass marvels.  Such simple and relatively crude tools to create such fine details.

As the following label describes, this project even led to the development of new materials and methods by these talented glass artists....

Here is an overview of the specimens he eventually created to illustrate red maple, Acer rubrum, complete with the vibrantly colored fall foliage. 

There are many, many more examples that I could share with you, but I'll stop here and encourage you to see this collection for yourself, if you are ever in Boston.

I can only imagine what the family of Mrs. Ware and her daughter said upon being first told that they were underwriting the production of this superb collection of glass botanical specimens.  I am deeply thankful, however, that Mrs. Ware and her daughter decided to go ahead and provide the funding, because it has given the world exquisite works of scientifically important art that are still breathtaking and unique, a century after they were made.  There are certainly many, many, less lasting and less important ways to spend money.