Paul Howes was a true Renaissance man of his time. During his long tenure of nearly 48 years at the Museum, he contributed in profound ways to the formation and growth of the collection. Among his many achievements, Howes collected and mounted specimens, constructed casework and painted backgrounds for dioramas, and even fabricated artificial plants as the foreground elements for each diorama. One such example featured over 3,000 leaves, trees, and other plants that Howes painstakingly created with wax, latex, plaster, and clay. These mushroom models exemplify Howes’s prodigious talents.
