MicrobeHunter.com Microscopy Forum

Hi John,

It certainly is not a Closterium. I think the answer can be found if you google "Fusarium conidia". You will find there pictures comparable to yours.

Roland

Hi John B., Nice experiment. Hope that you will succeed in making good sections! I am looking forward to see the next steps you are planning to do. Capsules will still be full of spores I think. The moss is Funaria hygrometrica as you already thought it would be. Almost always has asymmetrical capsu...

Hello,

I think it can also be an 'elater' that acts as a spring that projects spores out of the sporophytes of mosses, (mostly) in liverworts.

Roland

Hi John B, Very good pictures of this liverwort! It is Lophocolea bidentata . In well developed plants (as this is the case here) there is certainly an underleaf under every pair of 'normal' leaves that you call filaments. These underleaves are mostly 4-fingered and one cell broad in the upper part....

Hello Elmo,

This is probably a paramecium (it looks like a sole of a slipper with cilia). It would be better identifiable if the image was a little bit bigger.

Roland

Hi mrsonchus,
Nice images! I look forward to see other pictures of this moss in a "slow-tour" of yours. I think this is Atrichum undulatum, an acrocarp. See my article about this moss some time ago in the Microbehunter Magazine, April 2012 "A moss under the microscope"
Roland

Hi, I think it is moss spores, not necessarily coming from this particular plant. If this moss (not fertile as you write) has once been standing in open nature, it may have gathered spores of other mosses. Spores when ripe fly through the air and are deposited somewhere. Also to be noted is that 1 s...

For those who want to know more about desmids: I propose to visit www.desmids.nl
This is a dutch website for a greater part written in English. click on "desmid of the month" and you can access all the desmids that have already been entered.

I think this is the desmid closterium acerosum with moving crystals in the top. The specimen in your photograph is slowly drying out and crumbling as can be seen under left in your first photo. Normally this desmid is between 300 and 600 µm in length. Larger species (850 µm or even 1 mm) also occur ...

Hallo Gekko,

I am late with my answer, but I am pretty sure it is a desmid: Hyalotheca dissiliens. You can compare with photographs on the internet. Normally the color is always green; if brown, it is probably dead (or dying) and in decay.

Roland