A sealed glass case for transporting plants reshaped more than just botany

50 Things That Made The Modern Economy .. Tim Harford's series where this comes from, is fantastic radio IMO (I'm a big "More Or Less" fan too, his statistics programme ). It's available as podcasts of about 10mins length.

> It was Wardian cases, for example, that spread the Cavendish banana around the world. That's the variety you see in shops today. William Cavendish was the president of the Horticultural Society.

I was under the impression the Cavendish was an obscure cultivar until the 1950s when Panama Disease wiped out the then-standard Gros Michel variety. I suppose that doesn’t preclude the cavendish being moved about in these boxes

The “Wardian case”, basically a terrarium, that first allowed live plants to survive long sea voyages.