Hermetospheres

Experiences with plant life in closed glass containers

Category: South America

The dwarf Microgramma

“Microgramma C.Presl is a fern genus of approximately 30 species in the family Polypodiaceae, all occurring in the Neotropics except one occurring in Africa. They are rhizome-creeping epiphytes, growing from trunk bases to the canopy, with a few species also able to grow in rocky or terrestrial habitats. They occur preferentially in wet tropical forests…
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Avoid blurring

Hermetospheres can have a high aesthetic value. If that is part of the motivation behind them, one is tempted to capture the beauty photographically. However, objects behind glass are difficult to photograph. Depending on the optical quality of the glass from which the container is made, the object will appear more or less blurred. My…
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Acclimation (3): Peperomia sp.

Why does a plant begin to produce miniature leaves after a change in environmental conditions? This is the provisional story of a Peperomia sp. in one of my hermetospheres. The genus Peperomia is one of the largest genera of basal angiosperms, comprising about 1500–1700 species distributed across all (sub-)tropical regions of the world. The greatest…
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A tiny cosmopolitan

When I started with hermetospheres, mosses were not my first priority. They sometimes came as a stowaway with other plants, and I usually let them grow. They did not trouble and formed a welcome ground cover. Moss first caught my attention when spore capsules developed on long, thin stems in my very first hermetosphere jar.…
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A mysterious orchid with boat-shaped flowers

Very little is known about the orchid Restepia cymbula. According to C.A. Luer (1996), who described the species in the Icones Pleurothallidarium, its presumptive discoverer was Mario Portilla, later co-founder of the famous nursery Ecuagenera Cia. Ltda. Luer writes: “This little species without collection data was obtained in 1992 by Colomborquideas Ltd. above Medellin, Colombia,…
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In honour of João Barbosa Rodrigues

It is the first orchid I ever planted in a hermetosphere, and the fragile beauty of its flowers strikes me again every time. Initially it was planted on one side of the substrate with a small portion of its creeping rhizome. It has since worked its way across the entire diameter of the glass to…
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Unexpected guest

When creating and observing hermetospheres, I focus on plant life. However, one must be prepared to encounter unexpected guests. This is what happened to me once before, when a whole container was overgrown with a fungus within a few hours. With the latest guest, I got to know an entire new and extraordinary life form.…
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Around the world on behalf of the tsar

On 7 August 1803 the sailing ship Nadeshda under captain Adam Johann von Krusenstern left St. Petersburg for the first Russia-led circumnavigation of the globe on behalf of Tsar Alexander I. During a first stop in Copenhagen, German naturalist Georg Heinrich von Langsdorff (1774-1852), later diplomat in the service of the tsar, came aboard. After crossing…
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Darwin and the mystery of the coiling direction

When I acquired this plant as one of my first purchases to grow in a hermetosphere, it was labelled Marcgravia umbellata, but it might as well be Macgravia oligandra. Both plants originate from the caribbean islands and belong to the shingle-leaf climbers – root-climbing plants whose leaves are adpressed and often overlap (Zona 2020). As…
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Neoregelia

Bromeliads, the Bromeliaceae family, are among the most fascinating plants of the neotropical fauna. Most of them grow too large for a 5l hermetosphere. A few however do not only fit in size but also seem to find favorable conditions for living in hermetospheres. Initially, the Bromeliaceae family was divided into three subfamilies based on…
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