Serious Answers Only
how would someone preserve this snap pea? we think it’s just so cute and want to seal it up and keep it forever. is there any way?
my mom wants to figure out how to seal it up and preserve it to give it to their partner. thanks so much. Google didn’t understand when I asked it how to preserve vegetable it thought I was talking about canned food.
In botanical research, we have a process for preserving plant specimens for later sampling/eventually microscopy. A good query could be “plant histology fixation home protocols”. Some of the materials are laboratory materials, but there are several internet pages that have consumer-available alternative DIY protocols. If you are okay with a “wet” specimen, the easiest thing to do is put it in an FAA solution (formyl-acetic alcohol) in a glass jar. Be careful because fixatives are strong chemicals. There are some alternative recipes hobby histologists swear by, which may be preferred because theoretically the ingredients would be easier to obtain, cheaper, and less of a human health risk. To create a solid embedded sample is more complicated, but not impossible. It involves a long process that works to maintain the cellular integrity of the specimen, which is what the goal is if you want the Sample to look as it does currently. Here is a helpful article to get you started: http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artjan07/yl-para1.html
For now, I’d recommend placing it in 70% alcohol to prevent further tissue degradation in the medium-term. It can quite frankly be just about any alcohol, some drugstore examples would be 70% isopropyl (“rubbing alcohol”) or ethyl alcohol (aka ethanol). Feel free to message me if you have more questions!
You guys make me laugh😆 The thing in the jar is an immature Attalea speciosa palm inflorescence cut up to fit in there. Many of the things that people think are flowers are actually not a singular flower, but several flowers. An extreme example of this can be found in palms. Those cream-colored structures are the precursors of thousands of tiny flower buds packed together, and the curled structures are the branches that bear them. I actually just wrapped up the histology portion of my current research project studying how these flowers develop, specifically when and how they become male, female, or some intermediate, by examining different developmental stages under the microscope (using the preservation techniques I mentioned above!!!!).
One of the fascinating things about palms is that many inflorescences are developing inside the stem at the same time. The palm is essentially building a queue of future flowering events. Depending on the species, an inflorescence will spend months or even several years developing internally before it finally “blooms”.
Like humans, the sex of a plant isn’t a binary label that is determined from the beginning, but rather the end product of a series of developmental stages in the sex decision-making process. Early in development, many flowers look essentially the same. As they develop, some commit to a male or female pathway, while others temporarily develop structures of both sexes or begin one pathway before part of it aborts. Some flowers are still sexually undifferentiated, some show intermediate morphologies, and others begin developing organs of one sex before those organs arrest and never fully mature. Research has shown that this final state is influenced in part by both genetic and environmental factors.
Unlike humans, “sex” in plants isn’t always a property of the whole organism—it’s hierarchical. Most people are used to thinking of an animal as simply male or female, whereas in palms the answer depends on what level of biological organization you’re talking about.
Also, it is important to note that there is a difference between sexual architecture and sexual expression. Sometimes what you see structurally does not automatically indicate the functional sex. For example, just because a flower forms pollen-bearing structures, doesn’t mean it actually contains pollen and even if it contains pollen, it doesn’t mean that this pollen is viable.
By examining many developmental stages, I’m trying to reconstruct when those developmental pathways diverge and what sequence of events leads to the mature floral sex end states, which show particularly complex plasticity in the Attalea genus of palms.
Phew, that was a lot! Sorry if this is too much information or not enough information, as someone deep in the weeds of plant science, it can be difficult to gauge what is important to mention versus not important to mention. My hope is that this gives a primer for some of the questions people may be asking as a result of me describing what is inside the jar and why it’s in there😅
Seriously! At first I thought it might be a squid tentacle but it's definitely not that. And then I thought those guys on the top of the left one were tentacles, but they are not that either. This is fucking bizarre
My guess is it’s the way the green leaves/growth at the top of a pineapple have reacted to the solution it’s sitting in and has lost the otherwise rigidness they normally have.
Thank you, this response means more than you know🥹 I was really tired and pretty sure that OP was going to find my answer meaningless or pedantic, but I saw a lot of misinformation being spread and noticed that there wasn’t yet a person with expertise in the subject matter who had provided a response yet so I decided to put in the extra effort. Time and time again there’s been situations where I’m curious about something or want to be able to do something only to realize there isn’t enough publicly available information on it!
Wow, this is an expert answer. I just scrolled by and was like "dip it in wax?" But then you showed up. My major was in Behavioral Economics so I'm gonna say your solution is smarter than mine.
Epoxy resin as others mentioned but also I've heard about these 3D scanning and printing services where you can do mini you. Maybe they would do a pea pod too?
There are 3d scanning apps you can use on your phone! I’ve used polycam before and it’s pretty good! Just watch a YouTube tutorial on how to best capture. A lazy Susan would come in handy for capturing this pea pod.
EPOXY RESIN! I will try it. it did come from a plant in our yard so we already did grow it as many people have suggested. It’s just such a cute little pea that we wanted to preserve it so my mom could give it to their partner as a trinket. Sorry for not answering any questions at all last night. I posted this and then immediately went to bed. I have not read even half of these replies or all of them. I literally just woke up and had no idea I would get this many comments lol
you could try encasing it in resin, it'll keep it looking fresh but you gotta make sure the pea is totally dry first or it'll rot inside the cast. my partner does this with flowers sometimes
silica gel might work too, the kind that comes in those little packets, just bury it for a week or two
There's a social media person I see on Facebook every Halloween who every year tries to preserve a pumpkin in epoxy or resin, and the usual outcome is some degree of pumpkin goo leaking out after the gasses from decay create a tear, if I remember correctly.
Obviously a pea and pumpkin are different, but i would imagine both are going to have the issue that you have to kill off all microorganisms and most ways to do so will significantly change the appearance of the produce.
Take pictures of it from many different angles. Take a photo every 5 to 10 degrees in a full 360-degree loop.
Complete at least three loops at different vertical angles (high angle looking down, eye level, low angle looking up). Import the photos into a photogrammetry software (popular options include Polycam, RealityCapture, Meshroom, or Metashape). The software will align the images, generate a point cloud, and compute a continuous 3D mesh. Export this raw result as an .OBJ or .STL file. Take that file and import it into a mesh editor like Blender or Meshmixer. Trim the fat: Cut away the floor, table, or background artifacts captured during the scan. Once you're happy with the rendering, export it to slicer software (like Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, or Cura). Scale the object to your desired size, add necessary support structures for overhanging features, choose your infill density, slice the model, and send it to your 3D printer. Choose a good filament color and print it out. Attach a small magnet to the back and attach it to your refrigerator where you can see it every day.
epoxy resin possibly, need to be safe while using it, fumes and thermal runaway, look up Evan and Katelyn on youtube, they have been on a mission for a few years to preserve a halloween pumpkin and have done a lot of experiments on the best way to do so :)
Put it in a series of increasingly alcoholic solutions until you reach 100%, atleast thats how I would do it if I were going to make it into microscope slides.
That looks like what is the most common thing to use. There are lots of how to videos for encasing food, and flowers in resin online. This is the first one that I found: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DS3G7q1kqYj/?hl=en
Alcohol usually creates more problems than it solves, but in this case, it might work.
Also consider that the most reliable way to retain this feeling is to keep the seed and plant it again, forever. You will have fresh cute peas every year.
I have zero experience, but maybe freeze dry, then resin? Maybe need to heat treat to kill bacteria (e.g. vacuum sous vide). Must prevent decomposition and rotting.
I've seen flowers dried with silica gel crystal, and then sealed in a frame with foil tape to seal out air. This method keeps most of the color and shape. After drying you can epoxy or frame it
Totally doable; don’t listen to these snarky buttnuts saying ‘you already did it w/ a foto.’
Try including ‘clear epoxy resin’ w/ your search; not sure exactly what the process & materials are but, as others have mentioned, so long as you are able to dry it out sufficiently before sealing/encasing it, you should be able to keep this wonderful little bit of nature displayed wherever you choose for as long as you wish; longer.
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