Flowers made of glass—even the rotten fruit

Leaves and petals were shaped from glass, with veins, colours and delicate forms carefully recreated by hand. Between 1886 and 1936, father and son Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka made thousands of botanical glass models for Harvard. These lifelike plants served as teaching tools students could examine throughout the year. The models included diseased leaves and rotting fruit: one apple shows brown rot, with the details of decay deliberately preserved in glass.

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