K ingdom : Plantae

Sub kingdom : Tracheobionta

Class : Magnoliopsida

Division : Magnoliophyta

Sub Class : Asteridae

Order : Solanales

Family : Solanaceae

Genus : Petunia

Species : juss

Petunia is genus of 35 species of flowering plants of South American origin, closely related to tobacco, cape gooseberries, tomatoes, deadly nightshades, potatoes and chili peppers in the same family, Solanaceae. The popular flower of the same name derived its epithet from the French, which took the word petun, meaning “tobacco,” from a Tupi–Guarani language.

We have many beautiful flowers in our IISER Bhopal campus. We were very fascinated to observe pollen grains under foldscope. The pollen is a powdery substance containing the pollen grains and are present on the anther of a flower.

So here we go, we plucked few flowers from our campus . To transfer pollen to my sample, I tapped the anther lightly against a glass slide. Yellow pollen dusted the glass. Placing a coverslip on top of the pollen dust and applying pressure with my finger, I shifted the glass to spread the pollen in a thin layer and glued the coverslip in place.

We got to observe some spherical pollen grains under folscope.