Pollen and Staminal Hair of Tradescantia – a spiderwort
Jun 15, 2018 • 11:18 AM UTC
Unknown Location
140x Magnification
Microorganisms
Jasveen Dua
Dr. Jasveen Dua Assocaite Professor Dept. of Botany GGDSD College, Chandigarh (INDIA)
32posts
13comments
1locations
View in Media Gallery
Tradescantia (a spiderwort) is an invasive species and is well known to show cytoplasmic movements. In an attempt to study the phenomenon of cyclosis, the purple-heart species ( Tradescantia pallida ) was selected. It is an easy to grow plant by cuttings.
Its stamens have bilobed anthers with long filaments. Apparently the filaments appear white, but under a foldscope they were seen as flattened membraneous somewhat purplish in colour.
Anther lobe attached to filament as viewed under a foldscope
Presence of staminal hair emerging from the base of the filaments is a characteristic feature of the plant. The staminal hair (also referred to as trichomes) had oval shaped cells arranged in a uniseriate manner. A screen-shot image of a magnified cell appeared amazing. The cells appeared like rosary beads. We tried to capture slight movement in the cells (on zooming), though not very clear.
On slightly pressing the anthers, mass of somewhat oval shaped pollen grains oozed out.
We will attempt once again to capture the Cytoplasmic streaming movements.
This post is open to read and review on The Winnower.
This post is open to read and review on The Winnower.
Sign in to commentNobody has commented yet... Share your thoughts with the author and start the discussion!
0 Applause
0 Comments
