Plants

I often use polarised light for viewing plant sections because lignified tissue shows up brightly and makes for very attractive pictures. Starch also becomes very visible, with characteristic "Maltese Cross" markings. The sections shown here are commercially prepared slides.

 

Stellate trichomes (hairs) on leaf of Deutzia gracilis

Projectina microscope
Objective: Projectina x10 achromat
Ocular: Watson x8 Compensating
Top lens of substage condenser removed
Polarised light
Camera: Canon Powershot S50, full optical zoom

Transverse section of larch leaf

Transverse section of larch leaf

Transveres section of sunflower leaf, polarised light

 

Transverse section of sunflower leaf, viewed in polarised light

 

 

Transverse section of plant stem (Sequiselum spp(?))

Projectina microscope
Ocular: Watson x8 Compensating
Objective: Watson x4 parachromat
Polarised light

 

Section of pine twig in polarised light

Section of pine twig in polarised light

 

Potato starch in polarised light

Potato starch in polarised light

To find more about starch, click on the picture

pOPPY OVARY 40X

Section through poppy ovary

showing developing seeds. Original mag = 40x. Olympus FH microscope with Aiptek Pocket Cam 3 digital camera.

pOPPY OVARY 400X DARK GROUND

Poppy ovary

400x, darkground ilumination (substage wheel-stop)

Lilly Stamen

Wild M8 Microscope
Surface lighting
ISO100, F7.1, 1/3 sec (low mag)
ISO100, F4.0, 1/2 sec (high mag)
Each image is a composite of several images at different focal positions

Black & White point correction
Noise reduction
Manually retouched

.. and getting a liitle closer

Projectina microscope
Objective: Projectina x20 achromat
Ocular: Watson x8 compensating
Surface illumination using white LED
ISO100, F4.9, 2, 2.5 sec

Dahlia

Upper image: Wild M8 Microscope. Stack of 11 images combined in Helicon Focus

Lower image: Wild M8 microscope. Stack of 5 images combined in Helicon Focus

Dahlia Pollen

Both images using Zeiss Standard GFL microscope with x40 Zeiss plan acrhomat. The upper image is a single image, the lower a stack of 16 images combined using Helicon Focus.

The mountants used were different, as noted above.

 

 

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