Blackberry Lily Pollen

Applause IconJun 14, 2025 • 2:48 PM UTC
Location IconUnited States
Applause Icon140x Magnification
Applause IconPlants
Holly Stuart (Foldscope Team)

Education Specialist at Foldscope Instruments

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Found this beautiful flower growing in my neighborhood. It is a blackberry lily.
To collect the pollen I took a piece of clear tape and touched it to the anther to gather pollen.
Then I put the tape on a glass slide. (Notice that I was careful where my fingers touched the tape. I kept my fingerprints away from the pollen so there would be no blurring of the image.
Here is what I saw using the 140X lens plus 5X zoom on my phone. First is with Brightfield lighting, second is Darkfield, and third is reflective lighting.
To achieve Brightfield lighting you use the top setting on the 2.0 LED Light module.
To get Darkfield lighting use your hand to shift the LED light module to the side (you have to hold it because the magnet will try to pull it back to the alignment for the Brightfield setting).
For reflective lighting, slide the slider on the back of the LED light module down to the bottom.
Turn on the bottom light
And reattach it to the Foldscope so that the light is passing through the hole on the back of the Foldscope.
I hope this helps!

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