I was shocked when I saw the result. It looked as if there was one color missing. It was to late to brew fresh paints and I did not sleep very well, wondering how the workshop would work if my paints fail.
For the workshop I demonstrated cutting and staining with a fern and everything went well. All colors were present as they were supposed to. While driving home it dawned on me that my fresh sprout simply did not contain lignin! Otherwise it could not be used as food because it is well known that humans don't digest wood well
The absence of lignin caused my staining technique to fail miserably. As a matter of fact, most Monocotyledons produce very little lignin as they get their stability through the vascular bundles - vertical pipes providing the structural support. Because of the absence of lignin they can bend with the wind. Bamboo develops lots of lignin at a later stage and is quite sturdy.
Enough said, this is a stained section of the Garden Bamboo Fargesia sp.. This was a well lignified sprout. Enjoy!
5x polarized light
10x polarized light
10x bright field
The next image is pretty interesting. It is well known that some large organic molecules show fluorescence as way to get rid of abundant energy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autofluorescence
This is a fresh cut with water under the coverslip. No chemicals applied! This is reflected light with a 100 Watt halogen lamp and the Zeiss Filter 9. The filter has an excitation wavelength of 450-490 nm (blue light) and lets emitted light with a wavelength greater 515 nm pass.
20x, chlorophyll is red, lignin is green
Best regards,
Ecki
