
So after the numbness in my finger tips subsided I carefully collected some, and took a look at the underside of a leaf. Here you can see a nice example of a stinging trichome along one of the leaf veins. The tapered tube is very stiff and brittle due to a composition that includes silicates. The small ball-shaped tip breaks off easily on contact resulting in an extremely sharp point. The bulbous base, although appearing somewhat solid, is actually quite flexible, somewhat like an inflated bag, so that the enclosed liquid (containing sodium formamide, acetyl choline, histamine) is readily "pumped" into the unfortunate creature that pushed against the tube.
Olympus BHA, BH2-UMA, MSPlan 10/0.30 and NFK 2.5X, Canon T3i. (25x recorded on sensor). Illuminated with base light coming through leaf surface.
