Abstract

Not petrified, vitrified. Get it right.

Except, we got it wrong. Not the term, but, apparently, the process.

We knew that water glass sets to form a glassy solid, and also that cut flowers will take up food coloring from the water they are sitting in (flower chromatography). So...what if instead of food coloring we have them take up water glass?

Method

We cut two sets of flowers, as close to matched as we could, from the field next door to the place we usually meet.

We put set one in water.

We put the other in a 30%/70% mixture (by volume, eyeballed) of water glass and water.

We put them both in our drying room (figuring that the dry air would increase the rate of evaperation from the upper parts and pull liquid from the bottle.

After five days we pulled them out to look at them (even though people putting rocket tubes aside to dry reported that it was a fail on the second day.

Before

After

Water was somewhat effective (the smaller flowers had closed up, but this could have been because the room is dark) but the water glass was extremely effective – as a flower killer.