Stomates!

May 03, 2018 • 1:33 PM UTC

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Microorganisms

Ronak Hati

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Stomates/stomata are pores present on epidermis of plant parts that facilitate gaseous exchange. This pore is bounded by guard cells which are modified parenchyma cells that regulate size of stomatal opening.
Some playing with plants at home and one interesting plant at college led to these images.
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Stomata on leaves of Catharanthus roseus, same epidermal peel stained with 1% Methylene Blue

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As the name Excoecaria bicolor suggests, the plant has leaves with upper part green and lower part red. What must be the purpose of having a red bottom? Anyway, moving on to the images…

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Did not expect to see stomata in the fleshy onion bulb that we consume. The epidermis surely had things to offer. It is however expected to find stomata over there, since those are nothing but modified scale leaves!

So leaving behind questions for you all foldscopers. How’d stomata look like on other bulbs? Is it possible for one to use stomata to identify plants? How about setting up a ‘stomata database’?