In the late 1800s, a botanist at Harvard University was trying to solve a problem.

His name was George Goodale, and Harvard had put him in charge of creating a collection of botanical

models, but the collection had to serve two purposes. It was going to be used by scientists and

researchers to actually study plants,

and it was also going to be on display in a museum that would be open to the public. So first,

above all else, the collection had to be accurate. At the time, scientific models were usually made out of paper mache or wax.

So that was one option.

But those are kind of crude methods.

I mean, imagine trying to make a delicate flower petal out of the same thing that you use to make a pinata.

Not going to work.

So paper, machet and wax were out.

The other option was to use actual specimens.

But there was a problem with that, too.

When plants are preserved, they don't look lifelike.

This is Jennifer Brown.

She works at Harvard.

And she says George also had that second set of criteria to

think about. The collection had to be beautiful, enticing enough to be on display in a museum that people

would actually want to visit, except... If you think about plants and how they are preserved, they're typically pressed and dried

and mounted on paper herbarium sheets, but you could see how a room full of pressed dead plants

wouldn't be very exciting.

So no dried pressed flowers, no paper mache, no wax.

...