Various Parts of Poppy Flower

May 21, 2019 • 10:43 PM UTC

Los Angeles County, CA, USA

140x Magnification

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A California Poppy flower (Eschscholzia californica) was obtained on May 8th. 2019 at 11:00 pm in the poppy bushes near Lloyd and Ruddock. This is a picture of the cross section of the poppy stem, taken with a Samsung S5 Galaxy and Foldscope lens. You can see the xylem and the phloem which transport water and sugars throughout the plant, as well as the epidermis of the stem. The cross section was obtained by making a thin slice of the stem with a razor blade, and mounting it onto a glass slide with cover slip.

This is an epidermal peel of the stem from the same poppy plant. You can see the structures of the cell walls in the epidermis of the stem. I obtained this sample by scraping the stem with a razor blade and pulling on the peel to remove the epidermal layer, and wet-mounted the sample to a glass slide.

This is a picture of the ovules from the same poppy flower. I obtained this sample by peeling away the flower petals to expose the ovary and stigma, and cut the ovary in half lengthwise. Then, I made another cut to make a thin slice of the ovary. In this picture, the ovules (large round objects) are visible.

This is a close-up of a flower petal from the same poppy plant. The sample was obtained by scraping the petal from the flower with a razor blade to retrieve thin peels, and then wet-mounted to a glass slide. Under the microscope, the petal appears to have a luminescent yellow hue, while they typically appear to have a more dull orange color to the naked eye.

This is a picture of the tip of the stigma of the poppy flower. I simply sliced the tip of the stigma off of the poppy flower, and placed it onto the glass slide. I found that illuminating the specimen from the side allowed a clearer image quality, in contrast to a cross section specimen. This stigma has evidently been fertilized with pollen, as it is possible to see the pollen grains stuck onto the sides of the stigma.

All of these pictures are of various parts of the same poppy flower, retrieved from this poppy bush near Lloyd and Ruddock houses on May 8th, 11:00 pm.
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Various Parts of Poppy Flower

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