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Plants around Avery House

| Thu, May 30, 2019, 10:21 PM



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This image is of a bush outside Avery house that has pink, waxy, leaf-like flowers with 3 petals (leaves?) per flower. It is likely a Bougainvillea, which also has 3 leaf-like colorful petals. This sample was taken at about 4:30 pm. The image above shows the approximate location. The foldscope image taken above is one of it’s petals sandwiched into a slide, showing (on very close inspection) small “nodes” that are likely cells colored between dark/light pinks and lavender blues. A white vein runs through the petal in the image.

This image is of an aloe very plant with buds that have not yet flowered. The sample was taken right outside of Avery house at about 4:30 pm. It was identified to be an Aloe Vera flower by the gel-filled leaves at the base of the plant. The sample was prepared by peeling a petal off the bud and flattening it out before putting it into a slide. The green lines are the tough “spine” of the bud-petals, and the surrounding white is the yellow parts of the petal, which appeared white under a bright light.

This image is of an Asian Jasmine, identified by its strong sweet smell and white flower. The sample comes from the Avery inner court-yard and was taken at 4:30 pm. The image shown above is of a petal taken from a flower of this plant, which was sandwiched into the slide. The transparent-white skin-like areas are the whites of the petal. The brown strand is a vein in the petal.

The plant shown above is another Aloe Vera plant. The sample was taken right outside Avery house at 4:30 pm. The sample shown in the foldscope image is the gel from the leaves. We extracted the gel by breaking off some of the leaf, and squeezing the gel out onto the slide (it was really gross, we felt a pop and then essentially mucus came out). We were curious as to whether the gel contained cells or any type of solid structure, but upon analyzing our sample we found that it was all just liquid. As seen in the image, it’s just slightly colored liquid with particulates that are likely dirt.

The image above is (we think) a California Mountain Lilac. It was taken from right outside Avery house at 4:30 pm. We identified it from it’s blue/purple flowering bulbs and sprouting leaves rather than needles (we almost thought it was a sagebrush, but honestly we have no idea about flowers). The sample shown in the foldscope image above was taken by removing a single bulb from the “bulb-pack” and flattening it, then sandwiching it into the slide. The small white channels are the would-be white parts of the petals. The green channels are the tough “spines” of the buds.

The plant shown in the image is an Agapantha, identified by it’s six long blue petals and many long green leaves at the base of the stalk. It was taken from the Avery inner courtyard at about 4:30 pm. The foldscope image shown above is a sample of its petal, which was taken from a flower of the plant and sandwiched into a slide. The petal was mostly soft petal-cells with no spine or veins that we could find in our sample, though the veins may have camouflaged well against the blue petal.

The plant shown in the image above is a red rose, identified by its classic rose flower. The sample was taken on Moore walk outside of Avery house at around 4:30 pm. The sample shown in the foldscope image is of it’s petal, which was taken from the flower and sandwiched into a slide. The petal (upon very close inspection) shown small nodes, small cells making up the fine softness and dense color of the petal. It is near impossible to notice in a photo, but we noticed that the petal surface was very non-uniform, showing many “lumps”
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Type of Sample
unknown
Foldscope Lens Magnification
140x

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