I plucked a flower of
 
 Lavandula stoechas
 
 from the back patio of my dorm. I observed its petal under the foldscope and I saw layers of spiky structures forming an interconnected web. Even though the cells appear tightly packed at first, higher magnification revealed a considerable empty space in the three-dimensional arrangement.  The strange mesh-like cells are composed of a small spherical core with approximately 5 to 8 long and sharply-spiked projections.


 I always thought that a flower petal has layers of boring rectangular cells stacked upon each other but this observation introduced me to a whole new fascinating and beautiful world of botany.




 
 <img alt="3" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-24069 gcloudimg" data-attachment-id="24069" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}' data-image-title="3" data-recalc-dims="1" height="300" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/microcosmosdelta.appspot.com/images/transfer_24066/lav6.png" width="229"/>
 


 
 <img alt="2" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-24068 gcloudimg" data-attachment-id="24068" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}' data-image-title="2" data-recalc-dims="1" height="154" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/microcosmosdelta.appspot.com/images/transfer_24066/lav3.png" width="300"/>
 


 
 <img alt="1" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-24067 gcloudimg" data-attachment-id="24067" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta='{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0"}' data-image-title="1" data-recalc-dims="1" height="178" src="https://storage.googleapis.com/microcosmosdelta.appspot.com/images/transfer_24066/lav2.png" width="300"/>

Petal of Lavandula stoechas #BIO60

Tania Dhaliwal

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