Marc Finnell
speaker
240 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2026
last heard 28 Jun
Marc Finnell’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Jun 2026 with 2.
Appearances
Inside, soil, plants, moisture.
Basically, a tiny portable ecosystem.
And the front panel, it would swing open so the plants inside could be tended to.
And there were handles on the sides so the whole thing could be hauled onto ships and dragged around the world.
It doesn't sound revolutionary, but it completely changed what humans could transport across oceans alive.
At this point it's 1833 and getting from England to Australia by ship took around six months.
So this was not exactly a quick test run.
The Wardian cases were kept up on deck where the plants could still get sunlight while the glass protected them from salt spray, wild weather and just the general chaos of life at sea.
And they specifically placed it on a part of the ship called the poop deck.
Before your brain goes there, no, it's not called that because of why you think.
It's actually from the Latin word pupus, meaning the stern of a ship, that raised bit at the back, which admittedly is slightly less funny.
Having plants protected from the elements while on a ship was a game changer.
And that moisture condensing on the inside of the glass, it created its own water cycle.
Now that's really important because fresh water on a ship, very precious.
The less water wasted on the plants, the happier the crew tended to be.
Although on this particular 1833 voyage to Australia that the captain, Charles Mallard, he was already a massive plant nerd.
And he was very happy to have this giant glass plant box taking up space on his ship.
The experiment worked.
Two cases of plants travelled all the way from London to Sydney and they arrived happy and they arrived healthy.
The box travelled in what would eventually become known as the Wardian case, named after Nathaniel Ward.
Showing 161–180 of 240 · page 9 of 12
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