This past weekend, myself (Max) and Honomi Ijima from the Foldscope team had the pleasure of hosting a free outdoor public workshop at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, where you can find many more natural wonders beyond the world of flowers. We were delighted to co-host with Drew Risner-Davis, an exhibit manager and ace naturalist from the conservatory.
With Foldscopes, expert knowledge from Drew, and an entertaining wild card factor provided by the mercurial San Francisco wind, we explored many wonderful microscopic structures and helped community members build their own microscopes.
To start with, here is a sample of “pulu” a fiber made from the Hawaiian tree fern known as the hapu’u pulu:

We then turned our attention to the scales from a zebra longwing butterfly… (for other great butterfly wing scale posts from Aaron Pomerantz, check out these from the archives: https://microcosmos.foldscope.com/?p=8965 and https://microcosmos.foldscope.com/?p=10080 )

And then the individual cells within a Taro leaf…

Cheers to you all!