Morning glory pollen
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Morning glory pollen
Hear are some confocal images of morning glory pollen grains attached to the flower's stigma (edited - thanks, Rik!). Agarose sections imaged with Zeiss LSM 980 at 10, 25 and 40x objective magnification.
Depth color-coded version of the above image: Same as above, but with find edges filer applied before flattening the stack:
Depth color-coded version of the above image: Same as above, but with find edges filer applied before flattening the stack:
Last edited by blepharopsis on Thu Oct 27, 2022 7:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
- iconoclastica
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Re: Morning glory pollen
Having seen this, I don't think I'll ever have the courage again to show my fern spores to anyone...
Pretty big pollen though, must be what, about 250 µm?
Pretty big pollen though, must be what, about 250 µm?
--- felix filicis ---
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Re: Morning glory pollen
Beautiful set as always.
Hope to do confocal near that quality!
Rogelio
Hope to do confocal near that quality!
Rogelio
Re: Morning glory pollen
I love these images, not only for the renditions, clarity and detail but more so because it offers a clear picture of how the pollen interacts with the stigma (thanks Rik), something which I've never even seen an attempt of an explanation. Maybe I'm the only one that's missed this through all these years?
Last edited by Sym P. le on Thu Oct 27, 2022 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Morning glory pollen
Fern spores are so cool!iconoclastica wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 11:16 amHaving seen this, I don't think I'll ever have the courage again to show my fern spores to anyone...
Pretty big pollen though, must be what, about 250 µm?
Those pollen grain are ~135 µm diameter, with spikes.
- rjlittlefield
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Re: Morning glory pollen
Wonderful pictures!
One niggle: I'm thinking the word should be "stigma", not "stamen".
We're looking at the receptive part at the end of the pistil, right?
--Rik
One niggle: I'm thinking the word should be "stigma", not "stamen".
We're looking at the receptive part at the end of the pistil, right?
--Rik
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Re: Morning glory pollen
Thanks, Rik! I should have refreshed my flower anatomy nomenclature before posting Yes, this is definitely a lady part of the flower!rjlittlefield wrote: ↑Wed Oct 26, 2022 9:14 pmWonderful pictures!
One niggle: I'm thinking the word should be "stigma", not "stamen".
We're looking at the receptive part at the end of the pistil, right?
--Rik
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Re: Morning glory pollen
Igor,
Did you used some dye or it was auto fluorescence?
Please details about the lasers wavelength.
Rogelio
Did you used some dye or it was auto fluorescence?
Please details about the lasers wavelength.
Rogelio
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Re: Morning glory pollen
I used Congo Red and, except the first 2 images from the top (3 if you count the depth color-coded one), Calcofluor White. I used 405, 488 and 560 nm laser lines in simultaneous mode. The blue and green aurofluorescence is strong enough, that's why I dropped Calcofluor in the second round of preps.RogelioMoreno wrote: ↑Fri Oct 28, 2022 4:28 amIgor,
Did you used some dye or it was auto fluorescence?
Please details about the lasers wavelength.
Rogelio
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Re: Morning glory pollen
The clarity of the images is truly amazing.
Re: Morning glory pollen
Very nice set.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing.
- iconoclastica
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Re: Morning glory pollen
As I understand it the Zeiss LSM 980 is a laser scanning confocal microscope, designed for use with fluorescense. Thise pollen grain is not much fluorescent, I think, yet it shows a measure of detail I can only dream of (I am having such dreams, in fact!). SO, fluorescense is not mandatory to get excellent results? Which of the many techniques of LSCM does make this superesolution?
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Re: Morning glory pollen
This is FLUORESCENCE. Pollen grains are fluorescent by themselves (autofluorescence) and also can be stained with fluorochromesiconoclastica wrote: ↑Fri Nov 04, 2022 8:19 amSO, fluorescense is not mandatory to get excellent results? Which of the many techniques of LSCM does make this superesolution?
Confocal refers to the coincidence of the focus points of the objective image and of the excitation light source excluding the fluorescence of out of focus parts of the sample that degrades the image of wide-field (classic) fluorescence images. AFAIK there is not confocal without fluorescence. The term superresolution refers to resolution below the Abbe's diffraction limit. It would need more explanation and even more how to achieve it.
Take a look at the Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confocal_microscopy
Pau