I conducted this project as part of Professor Pringle’s EEB321 class at Princeton University.

I'm curious how bark microstructures vary among different species of trees, so I embarked (pun intended) on a journey to examine different bark samples under a foldscope. I braved the bitter winter wind to peel pieces of bark off some trees outside then ran back into the warm haven that is Icahn Laboratory --- but not before quickly snatching up a fallen leaf and a blade of grass just in case.



Looking under the foldscope, I couldn't see much of anything aside from a nondescript dark blob.



I figured my bark samples were both too thick and too large to be viewed properly. I tried again, this time breaking the bark into smaller and thinner pieces.



Hmm. Not sure what I'm looking at. Either this is bark as seen under a foldscope or I really dirtied up the coverslip with random particulates of who knows what. Anyway, good thing I brought backup!



The leaf turned out to be really pretty upon magnified inspection, thanks to its chlorophyll-iness. I also didn't expect it to be so bright and translucent under a foldscope. The way the yellow veins extended out like a hydra was really cool to me, creating a pattern of partitioned, green, sparkly polygons all over the leaf. I decided to check out the blade of grass next.



And wow, I think I was expecting it to look the same as the leaf, but what we find is something much more green, much more tidy, much more symmetrical. No oblong boxes, just straight tendrils running down the course of the blade. This got me pretty curious for sure, and I intend to do some more research. From my understanding, grasses are types of leaves, they both perform photosynthesis, but if they both have the same function why do they look so different? In fact, there must be hundreds of thousands of variations within different plant species throughout the world, and I've only just begun to scratch the surface.