orchids preserved in solution

[george gordon]

hi can anyone help me im after orchids preserved in solution like marie selbys spirit collection

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by george gordon

hi can anyone help me im after orchids preserved in solution like marie selbys spirit collection

What orchids and for what purpose do you need them? If you're not looking for specific specimens, you can produce your own - see the Melbourne Uni and RBG Sydney websites for details. Note: while the Melbourne Uni site recommends the addition of 1% glycerol to stop the specimens becoming brittle, the ANH has specimens stored in 70% ethanol + 10% glycerol. I don't know whether the addition of glycerol makes 70% ethanol more flammable but I find it disconcerning that the ANH calls the ethanol:glycerol solution "bangmix".

As well as the safety issues of storing large quantities of flammable liquids, if you're looking to buy wet collections, be aware of the regulations around shipping flammable liquids.

[george gordon]

I'm in the states and I'm wanting them for an installation in a glass cabinet, thanks for all your infor, if I knew nothing aBout orchids, could I pull this off if I had the solution, what do you think. Thanks again sir

[Andrew]

Trying to remember back to my undergrad biology days; there's not a great deal of technical expertise needed. If you have access to the solutions, it's as simple as placing the flower into a specimen jar containing the ethanol solution. There are no other fixing or processing steps needed. The specimen jar should seal well or the ethanol may evaporate over time. You might find the ethanol initially discolours slightly as the colour of the flower fades. Replacing the ethanol should solve this.

[george gordon]

Hey sir, so how would I fing out the exact solution, what percentages of each liquid, does it vary? And to get a range of different orchids is this hard at any time of the year, do I have to treat the plants before I submerge them.
Thankyou so much for helping.

[kavanaru]

Hi George, in order to provide you with good feedback, it is necessary to have more detail information of what you want and what your aiming with this.
Is this for scientific reasons? DNA extraction? Artistic reason: put them in a glass cabinet for an art installation? Do you want to keep only the flowers? for how long: weeks, months, years? Is it important that the flowers maintain their original colors (forget about thi sin solution! they all will loose the color pretty soon)?

[george gordon]

hi sir thanks for your reply,
yes its for an art installation, we are infactuated by orchids and have seen the marie selby collection titled spirits, i guess we would want them to last forever in the solution, but know that probably wouldnt be the case after hearing about fading etc, what are your thoughts on this, thanks, and do you know of anyone who can do this, or might want to try. im in los angeles, thankyou again

[kavanaru]

as I mentioned in a notherthread, the best you can do is contact botanical gardens/Herbarium as they will have the best "recipes" fro solution. In principal, the solution alcohol 70% + glicerol 1 - 10% would work fine. The only problem I see for your "last forever, is that you will need to have perfectly closed glasses (hermetic) to avoid any evaporation. However, you will also have that the solution will tend to get some color with time (normally yellow)... This is common and you find it in all herbarium samples...

[george gordon]

thanks again best regards george

[Andrew]

George,
The ethanol and ethanol:glycerol solutions will not preserve the colour. They only preserve the structure. I don't know of any methods of preservation (apart from freezing) that will sufficiently preserve the colour of the flower for a prolonged period of time. The solutions mentioned in the links I posted are used for long term storage and are the preservative of choice for current spirit collection, herbarium specimens in Australia. Formaldehyde:ethanol:acetic acid is common as a preservative in older spirit collections but this preservative has fallen out of favour due to the toxicity of formaldehyde.

There is no need to treat the flowers before placing them into the preservative solution. Regarding how to find out how to make the exact solution, the various perservative recipes are listed as percent volume solutions. ie to make 1 litre of 70% ethanol:10% glycerol preservative you would add 700ml of 100% ethanol: 100ml of 100% glycerol and 200ml water. If you can only find these reagents as lower percentage solutions you will need to adjust the volumes accordingly.