The California Poppy’s from which the pollen was sampled.
First pollen image
Second pollen image
Potential pollen or other substance image.
Other than the image of the flowers, these images were all obtained from a slide that was prepared by rubbing the slide against the pistil of the flowers around 8:30 p.m. at Caltech. Specifically, these flowers are in a flower bed just south of Ruddock House. The flowers shown in the first image are the ones from which the sample was drawn.
The images were obtained by using a phone camera to provide a backlight for the slide; the foldscope was laid upon the “flashlight” of the phone such that the light shone through the lens of the foldscope. The rear-facing camera of a second phone, an iPhone 7, was used to take the image, by placing the camera up to the foldscope lens.
The first two foldscope images appear to be the pollen of the California poppy ( Eschscholzia californica ), and are basically two slightly different photos of the same region of the slide. You can clearly see the granular nature of the pollen, even though it has been mostly collected into clumps. The third foldscope image is from a different portion of the slide, and it is unclear exactly what is depicted. It could be a portion of the pistil that has broken off during the collection of pollen, it could be an oddly formed pollen grain or perhaps a collection thereof – its unclear.
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