Don’t Judge a Leaf by its Cover (BioE80 Spr2015)
May 26, 2015 • 3:40 PM UTC
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ivyn
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As an explorer of the micro-cosmic universe, I am most curious about the organisms that make life possible on Earth, plants. I have always held a fascination about how plants transform the source of all energy in this system, the sun, into a chemical form that you and I survive on. It seems impossible that the leaves I rake off my lawn every fall are the very machines that power the world. Therefore, the question I would like to pose today with my Foldoscope is, “What does the surface of a leaf look like?” I ask this question because I want to learn how light can penetrate a seemingly solid surface and enter the light-capture machinery in the chloroplasts. During my sample collection session, I collected several leaves from trees and low-lying shrubbery. I tore a small section of a tree leaf (~2 mm wide) and made a Foldoscope slide. Using my phone, I was able to see the surface of the leaf on a microscale. To my amazement, I saw that the surface of a leaf has vascular tissue patterned similar to a giraffe’s skin. There are translucent veins intersecting and branching all across the surface, carrying water and nutrients to sustain the leaf and its photosynthetic functions. I assume that light passes through these microchannels, down to machinery. Though the leaf looks two dimensional to us on a macroscale, it is actually a very complex three-dimensional structure, an aspect that we often take for granted. I, therefore, leave with a follow up question for the explorer community: Looking below the surface, what is the organization of a leaf cross-section? What to the leaf over time if the surface is blocked from the sun? What are inside the leaf’s vessels? Why is it best to have the vessels be arranged in this pattern?
Explorer: Ivy Nguyen
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