Pollen of Aloe Vera at Caltech

May 30, 2019 • 7:40 PM UTC

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Helena Guan

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Pollen observed under foldscope, picture taken with iPhone front camera. The image above is of the pollen of an Aloe Vera flower. The pollen is pointy on both end and long in shape. It is of dark yellow to brown color, mostly solid and hard to see through.

The Aloe Vera flower which is used to sample the pollen is positioned on the left side of the stem, with its pistil sticking slightly out of the petals. The pollen sample is obtained from an Aloe Vera flower on campus of Caltech, outside of Bechtel Residence. The flower is picked around 3:45 PM, 5/30. The anther is rubbed against the slide to release the pollen. The pollen is later spread out more evenly by rubbing the cover slip against the slide gently.

The Aloe Vera plant outside of Bechtel Residence. The flower is Aloe Vera , an evergreen perennial succulent species of genus Aloe . The flower of Aloe Vera is small (~ 3 cm in length and ~ 0.8 cm in width) and yellow in color. The flower is generally oriented facing downward and the petals are closed. More description can be found at the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloe_vera .
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