training within the department, have undertaken to assist the 

 Curator and Mr. Wilder in day-to-day management of the 

 Herbarium. 



The value of the Economic Herbarium of Oakes Ames and the 

 teaching collection of Useful Plant Products lies in their import- 

 ance as tools of instruction and research in ethnobotany and 

 economic botany as well as being a repository for voucher speci- 

 mens of chemical analyses of plants by schools of pharmacy and 

 chemistry and pharmaceutical establishments. The Botanical 



jseum has provided 125 years of accessibility to students of 

 botanical science, and the Museum's specialized collections offer 

 a facility for research which might be difficult or impossible to 

 satisfy in the larger and more generalized herbaria dedicated to a 

 study of the floras of the world. 



M 



Scott E. Wilder 



Curatorial Assistant 



THE WARE COLLECTION OF 

 BLASCHKA GLASS MODELS OF PLANTS 



Millions of persons who have visited the Boston area re- 

 member Harvard University as the home of the "Glass Flowers." 

 Exhibited on the third floor of the Botanical Museum are 18 

 glass models of orchids which are now almost 100 years old. 

 They arrived from Germany in April of 1 887 as part of the initial 

 shipment of glass models of plants created in the studio of Leo- 

 pold and, later his son, Rudolph Blaschka in the small town of 

 Hosterwitz-bei-Dresden, the first of 850 models produced by 

 these artists between 1886 and 1936 and sent to Harvard in 23 

 shipments. 



The first few shipments of models numbered in the twenties 

 because of part-time production. Later, when the Blaschkas 

 worked on plant models full time, 50 to 60 were sent at one time. 

 After Leopold's death in 1895, Rudolph working alone sent 

 fewer models in each shipment, usually in the twenties and none 

 in some years due to World War I and other interruptions. 



41 



