Harvard's Glass Flowers, one of the world's most treasured glass collections, continue to deteriorate four years after a report suggested major changes to preserve the collection.

Preservation efforts have been delayed in part because of "politics and business as usual" in a museum divided among four directors, Flowers administrator Susan Rossi-Wilcox said.

"The Glass Flowers are the Sistine Chapel of the glass world and they deserve to receive attention," she said.

The Flowers are part of Harvard's Botanical Museum, one of four separate museums housed in the Museum of Cultural and Natural History.

But the museums are currently taking steps toward a partial merger, which could lead to action on the Flowers exhibit, administrators said.

More than 100 of the 845 scientifically accurate species in the Flowers collection are at least partially broken, Rossi-Wilcox said. "Glass disease" plagues 60 models, producing white spots on the glass, she added.

She said the exhibit needs minor repairs numbering "in the thousands."

The cards for the exhibit were written in the 1920s and '50s and are not useful for the lay visitor, Rossi-Wilcox said.

A January 1991 report by Harvard's Center for Conservation and Technical Studies recommended that the Botanical Museum improve its climate-control system and reduce lighting and vibrations in order to preserve the glass.

Such changes could only be made by moving the Flowers from their current location.

"Everyone agrees it would be good for their conservation if they were moved to a different location," said Andrew H. Knoll, director of the Botanical Museum and chair of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. "There's no question the collection is in need of conservation."

The Flowers are now located in two rooms in the center of visitor traffic flow for the Museum of Cultural and Natural History, which draws about 125,000 people each year.

People from around the world come to see the Flowers, including the spouses of many visiting dignitaries, Knoll said.

But visitors also include schoolchildren on field trips to other parts of the museum who must pass by the collection because of the layout.

"There are times when we have over 100 kids moving around the cases and they all want to touch them," Rossi-Wilcox said.

"They should be in a quieter space that's easier to control," said Gabrielle H. Whitehouse, director of public programs for the Museum of Comparative Zoology.