Hibiscus Pollen Sample Found outside of Page House

May 10, 2019 • 10:22 PM UTC

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The pollen sample was taken from Hibiscus flower outside Page House on Friday, May 9, 2019 at 12:04 pm. The sample was prepared by removing the the pollen off of the stamen using an exacto knife and placed on the slide using a cotton swab. The characteristic yellow pollen could indicate that it’s of the species rosa-kinesis of the Hibiscus genus of the Malvacae family (Figure 1).

Figure 1 The magnification of the foldscope was 140x. The lens of the foldscope is 1mm in diameter. There seems to be about 18 pollen grains (single cells) that could line up across the diameter (Figure 2). Therefore, we can calculate a single pollen grain as being 1/18 = .055 mm or 55 microns in diameter.

Figure 2 #caltechbi1