Grass roots – and the mystery of green tips.

May 09, 2015 • 5:45 PM UTC

South Beach, San Francisco, CA, USA

140x Magnification

Microorganisms

Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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Whenever, I am in a park – I always pull on grass. I am curious what’s lurking right under the soil. This time I decided to look at the roots. It’s quiet remarkable that these little hair thin structures penetrate through all kinds of soils and find resources for the plant.
I pulled a grass and put one single grass root thread on a double sided tape and mounted it in my 140x foldscope.
I was happy to see cells organized along the root growth axis. Since roots have been studied as a model system for development and morphogenesis; it’s nice to be reminded of the shape and form of these hairs.
Puzzle: Surprisingly, I also noticed green chlorophyll pigment only at the tip of the root. Otherwise most of the root was colorless or white. So why would that be – I am still wondering why the tip would have cells with chlorophyll. No light penetrates the soil – so what good would that do. If you have ideas, please leave them as comments below.
Next time you uproot a weed; don’t miss out on watching the roots – an invisible but a crucial part of a plant.