If you haven't seen the artful slides from the 1800s you are in for a treat.
The Victorians were fanatic hobby naturalists and their slides were a form of entertainment as well as scientific inquiry.
Howard Lynk has a fantastic site where you can explore this intricate and lush world. Imagine a cathedral's rose window done in carefully arranged butterfly scales or diatoms!
This more mundane slide to the right is an
Eccremocarpus scaber seed I saw on Ebay.
That discovery led me to another interesting site while I tried to figure out what the label said...
I finally got enough letters guessed correctly to come up with the Chilean Glory Flower. And then I found wildchicken nature and technology because it had the photo of the seeds below. It also has a ton more bits and pieces of useful information on plants and wildlife presented in a style that reminded me of the earlier days of the internet. You'll see what I mean if you go there (if you are old enough to have been on earth then).
Hmm...Belute of Whelk?
I wonder if this dull looking linaria seed has some feature that makes it a good specimen?
