Most terrariums live quiet lives on bookshelves. A few have changed the course of botany, trade and science, or simply refused to die for long enough to become famous. Here are the glass worlds worth knowing about, from a doctor’s accidental bottle to a three-acre experiment in the desert.
1. Nathaniel Ward’s accidental bottle (London, around 1829)
The first terrarium wasn’t meant to be one. Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, a London doctor and keen amateur naturalist, sealed a moth chrysalis in a glass bottle with some damp soil to watch it hatch. What he noticed instead was a fern and some grass sprouting from the soil, growing happily with no watering at all.
London’s air at the time was thick with coal smoke, and Ward had struggled to grow ferns in his garden. Inside the glass, protected from the soot, they thrived. He spent years experimenting with glazed cases and published his results in 1842. That jar is the ancestor of every terrarium since, including the one on your windowsill. (Here’s why his bottle worked.)
2. The Wardian cases that moved the world’s plants
Ward’s glass boxes turned out to solve a problem that had defeated plant collectors for centuries: most living plants died on long sea voyages, killed by salt spray, drought and darkness. Sealed in a glazed case, they could survive months at sea.
The Wardian case became one of the most consequential containers of the 19th century. Its most famous use was by the plant hunter Robert Fortune, who shipped thousands of tea plants and seedlings from China to India around 1850, helping to establish the tea industry in the Himalayan foothills. Wardian cases carried countless other plants around the empire too, with consequences, good and bad, that historians are still unpicking.
They also started a craze at home. Victorian parlours filled with ornate glass cases of ferns, part of the “fern fever” that swept Britain in the mid-1800s.
3. David Latimer’s bottle garden (Surrey, 1960)
In 1960, David Latimer planted a spiderwort seedling in a large glass carboy, added a little compost and sealed it. In 1972 he opened it once to add some water. Then he left it alone.
Decades later it was still green and filling the bottle, and the story was widely reported in 2013, turning a jar in a Surrey hallway into perhaps the world’s best-known terrarium. It remains the go-to example of what a well-balanced closed system can do. We tell the full story in how long can a closed terrarium live?
4. Biosphere 2 (Arizona, 1991)
If a terrarium is a sealed world under glass, Biosphere 2 is the most ambitious one ever built. Near Oracle, Arizona, a steel-and-glass structure covering about 3.14 acres enclosed a rainforest, a miniature ocean with a coral reef, a desert, wetlands and a farm.
On 26 September 1991, eight people were sealed inside for two years, to test whether humans could survive in a closed ecosystem. It did not go smoothly. Oxygen levels fell steadily from about 21 per cent to around 14 per cent, leaving the crew breathless and exhausted, and outside oxygen had to be pumped in during 1993. Part of the explanation turned out to be rich soils full of oxygen-hungry microbes, with some of the carbon dioxide they produced being absorbed by the building’s exposed concrete.
The crew emerged on 26 September 1993. As a self-sufficient colony it fell short; as a lesson in how hard it is to balance a closed system, it was invaluable. Today it is run by the University of Arizona as a research facility, and it is open to visitors.
The lesson scales all the way down: rich soil, lots of decomposing material and too little balance can tip any sealed jar. It’s why we keep terrarium substrate light and the moss tidy.
5. The EcoSphere: a sealed world you can hold
At the other end of the scale are sealed glass globes containing tiny shrimp, algae and bacteria in water, sold since the late 1980s as “closed ecosystems”. They grew out of NASA-funded research into life support for long space missions. Nothing goes in or out except light and heat, and in good conditions the shrimp can live for years. Technically an aquatic cousin of the terrarium, it is the most famous desk-sized closed system in the world.
6. The Victorian glasshouse: the terrarium you can walk into
Ward’s cases were part of a wider Victorian fascination with growing things under glass, which also gave us the great glasshouses. The Palm House at Kew, completed in the 1840s, is the best-known British example. It isn’t sealed, so it isn’t strictly a terrarium, but standing inside one on a cold day gives you some idea of how a fern must feel in a well-balanced jar.
What the famous ones have in common
Look past the scale and the same rules keep coming up. Each one worked, or failed, depending on the balance of water, light, air and decomposition. Ward’s fern got clean air and steady humidity. Latimer’s bottle got light, left alone. Biosphere 2 had too much going on in the soil. Your own jar runs on exactly the same principles, which is rather a nice thought next time you check the condensation over breakfast.
Frequently asked questions
What is the oldest terrarium?
Nathaniel Ward’s bottle from around 1829 is generally treated as the first. Among terrariums still living, David Latimer’s bottle garden, planted in 1960, is the most famous long-lived example.
What is the biggest terrarium in the world?
Biosphere 2 in Arizona, at around 3.14 acres, is the largest sealed ecosystem ever built for people to live in. Some botanical glasshouses are larger, but they are ventilated rather than sealed.
Who invented the Wardian case?
Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward, a London doctor, who developed it in the 1830s after his accidental discovery and described it in his 1842 book on growing plants in closely glazed cases.
Can I visit Biosphere 2?
Yes. It is now a University of Arizona research facility near Tucson and runs public tours.
Make your own piece of history
You don’t need three acres, a research budget or a moth chrysalis. A jar, a few layers and some live moss will do. Our terrarium kits have everything, and our step-by-step guide takes you through it. Who knows. In 2080, yours might be the famous one.