RegardsKentGardener for the Carnivorous Plant Society Journal wrote: Glass Flowers
In the autumn of 1995 my partner and I were lucky enough to visit the East Coast of America for three weeks. My partner was working for a week in Boston, Mass. whilst I went exploring, before both going on to spend some time travelling through several other states. One of our main goals was to see Niagara Falls, which was totally stunning and well worth a visit, and we thoroughly enjoyed our expedition on the "Maid of the Mist'. We then travelled through the Adarondack Mountains where the amazing changes in leaf colour of the deciduous trees was breathtaking. We finally arrived in New York City, which is a place that we had both dreamed of visiting and which lived up to our every expectation.
Boston is a wonderful city, being both open and spacious and, although containing an excellent transport system called the "T", is small enough to enable the visitor to walk almost everywhere in comfort. We were staying in a small guest house near the Boston Symphony Hall. If you ever get to this part of town it is worth taking a couple of minutes to wander around the Contemplation Pool of the Church of Christ Scientist, designed by I. M. Pei. Here you will find a beautiful water feature set in spacious surroundings, yet still within the City centre, which reflects the kind of civic ambition present in Victorian England.
It was while on one of my daily excursions that I overheard a couple talking about the "Glass Flowers" at Harvard. Not having heard of these and being a naturally inquisitive person I visited Cambridge and the campus of Harvard University the very next day and went in search of them. I eventually tracked them to the Botanical Museum of Harvard University which houses many mineral samples and meteorites from around our own world and beyond.
The Glass Flowers are, as their name suggests, three-dimensional life size models of flowers made almost entirely from glass. Some of them are internally reinforced with wire to increase their strength and stability. The flowers began life as teaching aids, commissioned by the first director and founder of the Botanical museum, Professor George Lincoln Goodale. Professor Goodale, a botany teacher, was searching for an improvement on the drawings, rough papier-mâché, clay and wax models which were currently available.
At that time there were many excellent glass models of sea creatures on display at museums around the world including Harvard's Museum of Comparative Zoology. Professor Goodale realised that if he could commission the same craftsmen to produce glass replicas of plants, then he may well have found what he wanted. He discovered that the models were made by Leopold Blaschka and his son Rudolph who lived and worked in Hosterwitz near Dresden, Germany. They created them using coloured or clear glass that was heated until it became possible to accurately shape it into the desired forms. A thin film of ground, coloured glass or metal oxides would later be heated and amalgamated with the model to show even greater detail.
In 1886 Professor Goodale travelled to Germany to personally ask the Blaschkas if they could make some models of plants for him. The father and son team were in no need of extra work, being so successful with their marine models, but reluctantly agreed to make a few samples. These were shipped to the US that same year but as a result of the not-so-careful handling inflicted by Customs Officers, not one model survived the trip. The Professor, however, was so impressed with the fragments he did manage to salvage, that the following year he once again convinced the Blaschkas to take the project on' this time as a part-time endeavour, and they produced a few models each year until 1890.
It was also in 1890 that a Mrs Elizabeth C. Ware, whose late husband Dr Charles E Ware had been a pupil at Harvard (class of 1834), and their daughter Miss Mary Lee Ware wished to establish a memorial to his memory. Hearing of professor Goodale's models, they generously agreed to finance the whole commission, and the Blaschka studio signed an exclusive contract and started work on the "Glass Flowers" project full time. Sadly, Leopold Blaschka died in 1895, but Rudolph continued to make the models until 1936. On completion, the entire collection was donated by Mrs and Miss Ware to the President and Fellows of Harvard College, where it remains to this day.
The creation of "The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants", as they are officially known, made it possible to show often rare, tropical and temperate species in impeccable detail and at all stages of development, including the flowering stage. There are 847 species from nearly 170 families of plant, numbering almost 3,000 in total. The extremely accurate and life-like examples of the plant kingdom range from full size plants and flowers, often including their root Systems, to enlarged anatomical cross sections and reproductive parts. The last models to be made even show the action of fungi on plants and fruit resulting in their decomposition.
The collection contains 8 species of Carnivorous Plant from three families. From Droseraceae; Dionaea muscipula made in 1890; Drosera rotundifolia in 1893; and Drosera filformis in 1898. From Sarraceniaceae; Sarracenia purpurea 1892; Darlingtonia clifornica 1894; and Sarracenia flava 1896 (the last two being based on plants collected from the Botanical Garden of St Louis, Missouri in 1892). From Nepenthaceae; Nepenthes maxima and N. sanguinea both made in 1906 and based on plants purchased by the Blaschkas from Veitch's nursery in London.
I hope that some of you will be lucky enough to visit "The Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants" at some time. If my finances ever allow me to visit the States again I hope to arrange an itinerary in advance, so that I may get the opportunity to visit some private collectors and see their collections of Carnivorous Plants. I would also like to try and see C.P.s in the wild, as I feel sure that we must have been very close to some naturally occurring plants on our drive around the East Coast.
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With special thanks to Susan M Rossi-Wilcox, Curatorial Associate in Harvard University Herberia and Administrator for the collection.
John