The wood library
Kassel is a couple of hours drive from where we live and home to the Documenta exhibition, which happens every five years – the last one was in 2002 – we visited and enjoyed it greatly.
However, that is not the only reason to go to Kassel. The natural history collection in the Ottoneum is also worth a visit. They have a collection of 530 wooden books, made of 441 different sorts of wood by Carl Schildbach, the park administrator at the end of the 18th century.
Each “book” is actually a wooden box, made of wood from the trunk and branches of the specific bush or tree, and containing preserved samples of the leaves, flowers and fruits of the species- when Schildbach couldn’t successfully preserve an item, he made life-like wax copies for his collection.
The spines of the books are covered by the bark of the shrub or tree (complete with any moss or lichen that had been growing on it at the time). Inside the lid of each box is information about the species of tree or shrub and of how much energy it releases when burnt.