You might think that these are real plants, but they’re actually all made of glass! ‘The Glass Flowers’ were created by a father and son glass specialist team Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka between 1887 and 1936. The pieces were commissioned to aid in the teaching of botany so they needed to be realistic and anatomically correct. Before this time plant specimens were mainly pressed, they lacked any 3d aspect and colours would quickly fade. The realistic glass models allowed specimens to be studied in their truer forms and colours.
Image credit: Roy Luck, Flickr.
Since the creators passing many other glass sculptors have tried but failed to produce plant models of the same quality.
Image credit: Daniel Makoto Tokunaga, Flickr.
The collection featuring around 4,300 individual pieces is displayed at the Harvard Museum of Natural History in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US.
Image credit: Kenneth Setzer, Flickr.
