
Making Skeletonised Leaves - arbol
https://blog.lidskialf.net/2020/09/17/making-skeletonised-leaves/
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greenduck
Cool. This reminds me of people pulling the cells out of leaves and replacing
them with stuff like human heart cells [1].

[1] [https://www.wpi.edu/news/wpi-team-grows-heart-tissue-
spinach...](https://www.wpi.edu/news/wpi-team-grows-heart-tissue-spinach-
leaves)

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xwdv
I wonder how these would taste in a salad.

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dmd
It makes for a very hearty salad.

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andreareina
Since there was no mention in TFA: please remember to add the hydroxide to
water rather than the other way around (i.e. water into hydroxide)---the
hydroxide dissolving into water releases heat and you don't want a highly
caustic liquid to suddenly boil on you.

~~~
IAmGraydon
The thought of an inexperienced person boiling a solution of Sodium Hydroxide
in something as crude as a soup pot on their stovetop gives me the shudders. I
can’t express enough how stupid this is. Don’t do this.

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nmridul
Leaf arts used to be a common thing in many parts of India. As kids we used to
keep fresh leaves in between pages in a notebook and keep it for weeks. aA the
end, you are only left with the veins. Peepal leaves were used for its
sturdiness.

Some beautiful craft works from such leaves.
[https://www.google.com/search?q=peepal+leaf+art](https://www.google.com/search?q=peepal+leaf+art)

~~~
pvaldes
Being a big leaf with a distinctive tail Ficus religiosa should yield very
nice results. As a footnote, the veins arrangement is a basic character to
distinguish the many hundred extant species of Ficus. Some have very
characteristic veins arranged in a stack (like pages in a book) and other show
veins arranged in an irregular reticulate. Second and third grade veins are
also an important character.

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pvaldes
> you have to carefully unroll the leaves by hand

Don't do that. I assume that the curl problem can be solved processing the
leaves into two (non-reactive) metallic mesh pieces or two glass panes joined
together with a few clothes pegs. Or use pre-dried pressed leaves that are
more rigid.

Pros: The procedure is faster than the 'macerate it in water for weeks' system
plus saving bleaching final step, but (cons) 1) the results are not so good as
in the classic procedure (lots of veins vanished in the Hedera leaves for
example, and Platanus leaves are still imperfect) 2) you can not use delicate
leaves (it seems that the fresh Ulmus, Urtica and Rosa leaves disappeared
totally in the procedure but water still could process those), and 3) is more
dangerous.

Is a nice explorative project, but is just at the middle of the road at this
moment. Can be improved

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foobarian
I am not surprised that Urtica didn't work. They prepare and taste very much
like spinach.

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kaikai
I’ve seen fancy tea strainers made from skeletonized leaves, so I clicked to
see their process. I’ve been thinking of making some, but the only
skeletonized leaves I’ve seen were in creeks and are pretty fragile. It seems
like leaf selection is the hard part, not the method, since creeks do the job
fine and with lye the leaves were still fragile. Looks like I need some peepal
leaves!

