Broccolini cross section,. Iris stem cross section

[Charles Krebs]

Came across some of Robert Berdan's excellent plant section shots and was inspired to dig out my old hand microtome. I raided the veggie compartment for some broccolini (cross between broccoli and Chinese broccoli), and then picked an Iris from my yard. I managed to get some shots and only cut my finger once!

The first four are of the broccolini stem. The last is the Iris stem. All were darkfield illumination. First image was taken with a 4X, the rest are with a 10X.

[Marek Mis]

Excellent Charlie ! Broccoli is one of my favourites when it comes to plant tissues
What microtome did you used ? And what razor ? I am going to make plant sections with a hand microtome as well.

[micro_pix]

.
Beautifully done!

David

[Saul]

... All were darkfield illumination...

Perfect !
Simple DF only ? No hidden tricks ? Some staining, polarisation etc ?

[sebba28]

Very nice.

[Sumguy01]

Amazing photos.
Thanks for sharing.

[WalterD]

Beautiful, thanks for sharing!
I gues you did not have to stain them, anyhow the colours come out great.

Regards,

Walter

[Charles Krebs]

... All were darkfield illumination...

Perfect !
Simple DF only ? No hidden tricks ? Some staining, polarisation etc ?

Sorry about that. No intention of hiding anything. These were indeed stained in a very basic manner. (I suppose I thought that would be apparent). The sections were cut with a hand microtome, placed in a dish of water and simply stained by adding a couple drops of Toluidine blue (a commonly used blue stain). I pulled them out after about 30 seconds, rinsed, and put them on a slide. (One of the broccollini shots used a red stain). The lighting was simple darkfield.