Tam-Tam's Blog

TERRARIUMS, Some History.
Nov 28, 2007 | 5:45 PM PST
Tags: terrariums , history , wardian cases

"Terrarium" is derived from the Latin terra meaning (earth) and arium meaning (a container of), but sealed containers of earth date back to ancient Greece. The women of ancient Greece celebrated an eight day festival in honor of Adonis. Adonis was the handsome youth that was loved by Aphrodite, the goddess of love. In the legend, Adonis was killed by a wild boar and Aphrodite was so stricken with grief that the other gods took pity on her and decided that Adonis could spend one half of the year with her, but he had to remain in the underworld for the other part of the year. To the ancient people, Adonis' death and resurrection became the symbol of the appearance and disappearance of vegetation. So every spring, Greek women held the eight day festival, in which they would ceremonially mourn the dead youth and sang songs asking him to return to the earth. They planted the "Gardens of Adonis" with quick germinating seeds, during the festival and the gardens were thrown into the sea at the end of the festivities.

As the ancient people began to adopt Christianity over their pagan beliefs, the need for the "Gardens of Adonis" ceased to exist. Although the famous Greek philosopher Plato mentioned sowing seeds in sealed containers, there seems to be very little evidence that any kind of sealed containers of earth were used by anyone other than the ancient people of Greece, that is, until the early nineteenth century.

The modern terrarium, as we know it, was developed by an English Doctor, Nathaniel Ward. As a youth, Dr. Ward dreamed of becoming a famous botanist, and would collect plants to dry and mount when he was on holiday trips with his family. When he was thirteen, and on a trip to Jamaica, he became inspired to become an expert on tropical vegetation. His father did not approve and insisted that he studied medicine and become a medical doctor like himself. Nathaniel did study medicine and became a doctor, eventually taking over his father's practice in the Whitechapel section of London. Nathaniel never lost his love for botany and studied botany and gardening in his leisure time.

In the summer of 1829 Dr. Nathaniel Ward placed some damp soil and the chrysalis of a sphinx moth in a wide mouth jar covered with a tin lid with the idea of being able to monitor the moth as it emerged. He noticed that a small fern and some grass was sprouting in the jar. Although astonished by the growth, he expected the sprigs to wither and die, but they flourished even after the moth had been released. The fern and grass continued to grow unattended for nearly four years. The tin covering finally rusted and rain water leaked into the bottle and the plants died. Dr. Ward had tried to plant ferns and moss on an old ugly wall in his back yard earlier, and they all died. He believed that it had to do with the pollution in the air and rain. So he concluded that the reason why the fern thrived in its container was the fact that it was not subjected to the pollution in the environment.

Dr. Ward began to theorize that any plant that received sufficient light, warmth, nutrients, and enough moisture to maintain the rain cycle in the container, could be grown in a sealed container. After many successful experiments, Dr. Ward developed a closely glazed case that could be used to transport plants. This was something that was desperately needed. Nursery firms which imported plants would lose thousands of plants on the extremely long voyages from countries like China.

The Wardian Cases were basically portable greenhouses that enabled the shipping of both exotic and economically important plants around the world. These cases helped to ship thousands of wild rubber tree seeds from Brazil to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, England. Only two thousand of the seeds germinated. These two thousand seedlings were sent on to Ceylon without the lost of any seedlings, to help replenish the wild rubber tree population that had been destroyed by blight. The Wardian Case has a very prominent place throughout history. For instance, Wardian Cases were used to ship 35,000 tea plants that were imported by the Congress of the United States. It was hoped that a tea industry could be established but the project was abandoned due to the onset of the war between the states. The tea plants did arrive in excellent condition from the Orient.

In England the Wadian Case became elegant and ornate and found their way into the most beautiful drawing rooms, but the glass gardens also were practical enough that every home could have one.

Next up: How the rain cycle works.