Bringing the forests back to life - palaeobotanical model making at the National Museums and Galleries of Wales

Based on techniques used for preparing displays of modern-day plants, model-making has proved a useful tool for developing exhibitions of fossil plants. The most useful medium for such modelling proved to be wax, combined with card, paper and sometimes tinned copper wire. To help with their long-term conservation, careful records need to be kept of the construction materials and methods for each model. To demonstrate the problems inherent in the modelling of different types of plant structure, details are presented of how the various parts of the Carboniferous treelike club-moss Lepidodendron were produced.