Seed?

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 11:14 am

20140117-DSLR_IMG_0186.jpg by pwnell, on Flickr
Seed?,2x,FLUO-C4

20140117-DSLR_IMG_0191-Edit.jpg by pwnell, on Flickr
Seed?,10x,FLUO-C4, ZS PMax

20140117-DSLR_IMG_0346-Edit.jpg by pwnell, on Flickr
Seed?,10x,FLUO-C6, ZS PMax

Jacek · Post by **Jacek** » Mon Jan 20, 2014 12:27 pm

last great

carlos.uruguay · Post by **carlos.uruguay** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 3:23 am

RogelioMoreno · Post by **RogelioMoreno** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 5:02 am

Nice!

Rogelio

vasselle · Post by **vasselle** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 7:27 am

Superbe

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:42 pm

Not convinced it's a seed. Don't know what it is, but it's a very pretty image.

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Tue Jan 21, 2014 1:55 pm

Thanks. I also do not think it is a seed - rather the growing endpoint of some plant.

Cactusdave · Post by **Cactusdave** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 1:38 am

Yes it makes more sense with that view. pretty sure it's a dormant/over wintering bud of an alga. Something like Canadian pondweed.

Carduus · Post by **Carduus** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 2:06 am

This looks like the turion (overwintering bud) of an aquatic bladderwort (Utricularia), perhaps U. macrorhiza or U. intermedia. Essentially just a lot of condensed leaves protecting the growing point. The densely clustered setae around the leaf tips are interesting - on growing plants they tend to be more spread out.

Do you have a photo of the habitat where you found it? Presumably some kind of pond or other stillwater habitat. I have some U. australis growing in my garden pond, so I could fish some of that up for comparison.

Update: I looked at some U. australis turions from the pond and they're virtually identical. This species doesn't grow in North America, but there are several species it could be including the two above.

pwnell · Post by **pwnell** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 10:28 am

This is the exact location I found it:

https://maps.google.ca/?ll=49.050516,-1 ... 4&t=h&z=18

I used to find these plants in the summer there:

http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... t=carolina

Carduus · Post by **Carduus** » Wed Jan 22, 2014 1:00 pm

Yes, that's the plant. Definitely Utricularia - not Carolina Fanwort (Cabomba). Going by the shape of the traps I think it looks good for U. macrorhiza - a lot of the other species have more elaborate 'teeth' projecting above the trap door - but not being familiar with Canadian species I wouldn't say for definite. It'd be good to catch it flowering in the early summer - yellow snapdragon-type flowers on spikes above the water.

Very nice photos by the way - do you know what it is that makes the setae fluoresce green so strongly? A really striking contrast with the chlorophyll.