Herbariums - Fernery Projects - Leisurely Activities for Children and Adults
Introduction
If you are interested in preserving plants, in the shape of dried flowers, leaves, and even seedpods, you may want to preserve them for posterity in what is known as a herbarium. In olden days, it was called a Hortus Siccus – and since ancient times, gardeners and botanists kept looking for ways and means in which they could preserve flowers, and plants in a dried condition, for a long time.
These herbariums were found in the East, where the Chinese knew how to manufacture paper, more than 3,000 years ago. These plants were placed between paper and pressed and dried. It was only when people in Europe got to know about paper, about 800 years ago, apart from using this for writing manuscripts, they also began to preserve plants between sheets of paper, especially when Linnaeus began his own way of classifying plants and so brought the science of taxonomy to the Latin speaking world of Western scholars.
And that is why the men went collecting, all over the globe, bringing back samples of flowers, leaves, and other parts of the plants, which they dried in wooden presses. If they were blessed with an artistic talent, they would do a little bit of painting of that sample, or records, but this painting and drawing was left to the women of the house because that was supposed to be an aristocratic talent, which the middle-class adopted in the 18th – 19th century.
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Starting Your Herbarium
- Butterflies and Insects Added to Your Pages
- Adding Mosses to Your Herbarium
- Making Your Own Fernery
- Plant Choices
- Conclusion
- Author Bio
- Publisher
Important:
This is for the Digital Book Download only. For the Printed Copy, click HERE