Flowers through the Looking Glass

Mar 06, 2018 • 10:41 PM UTC

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140x Magnification

Microorganisms

lmaassen

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After the amazing results I obtained from my first foldscoping experience, I wanted to extend my idea and look at different flowers. I though to myself: “How will the structure from the rose I initially observed differ from other flowers and what other observations can I make about the microscopic image of flower interiors ?”

Again, my dear Professors provided flower samples in class which I used for this experiment. I looked at three different flowers and in hindsight I wish I had taken pictures of them before using them for the samples so I could identify them now. The method I used to prepare the slides is identical to the one I used in the last post.

The results I obtained from this experiment were even more stunning than the rose petal. In the last two samples I observed extremely vivid, almost glowing colors, and I am unsure if this can be accounted to natural variation or an accidental change in my light source as the LED provided in the kit has two brightness settings. The observations I made about the structure of the different flowers is that they’re seems to be no very significant variation (all have tightly packed cells) but interestingly enough the pink flower does seem to have some sort of vain like structure in the bottom left corner. Any thoughts on function?

Overall the Foldscope has served as an amazing tool – a sort of Looking Glass – into the world of flower interiors and has highlighted the beauty of the biological structures that evolution has helped create.

Flowers through the Looking Glass

lmaassen

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