A sample of pollen collected from outside Beckman Institute at Caltech, viewed through a Foldscope. Mostly small, round looking cells can be seen, although in the lower left corner there are some longer shapes as well. This sample was obtained at 2:04 PM on Friday, May 10th. A flower was plucked from the bushes and peeled open to find the pollen, which was then rubbed off onto the slide.
The pollen came from a small, white, flower with 5 petals. This is likely from the common jasmine flower (jasminum officinale).
The magnification of a Foldscope is 140x. The magnified round particles are about 1-2 mm across, and divided by 140 this is .007-.014 mm, so the actual pollen particles are then about 7-15 microns across.
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