Passionflower Pollen

[jeg101]

I have an exotic looking plant trailing over my fence from a neighbour's garden which I identified it as a passionflower. The pollen grains themselves are a deep golden colour, large, and to me look like tennis balls! They are certainly photogenic.

This image was taken using the 40x objective and is the result of a 7 image stack processed in Photoshop.

[Cyclops]

Anyone for tennis?

[75RR]

Nice and sharp image. Interesting shape.
A quick search on the web reveals that pollen is a much more interesting subject than I had supposed.

[jeg101]

I am constantly amazed by the variety of geometrical shapes pollen can take. It can be a challenge to photograph though. I prefer to try to image pollen in it's natural form and revealing it's 3d shape using stacking techniques. Some of the most intriguing so far that I've looked at are Common fumitory, Common Mallow, Geranium, Pine and Passionflower.

[apochronaut]

What does a passion flower stigma look like? A tennis net?

[jeg101]

20150813_163130626_iOS1000.jpg (483.41 KiB) Viewed 6024 times

[billbillt]

Hi jeg,
That is a beautiful flower photo... It IS strange that the pollen looks almost exactly like tennis balls...

[charlie g]

That's quite a flower,jeg101. How do you prepare the pollen on a slide? What medium is it in...or is it air dry laying on the slide?

Very good texture on that pollen...hum...40X objective...that's huge size for pollen!?? thanks for the microscopy, charlie Guevara. BTW my largest dog investigates everything with his nose...our orange tiger-lilies pollen had bright orange smudges on his white fur snout for over five days...that pollen pigment was durable!

[JimT]

Pollen photos are very good. Never had a tennis ball with dimples

The macro image of the flower is beautiful!!!

[CaterpillarGuy]

The dimples make it a cross between tennis and golf balls.

[vasselle]

Bonjour.
Très beaux.
Cordialement seb

[zzffnn]

That's quite a flower,jeg101. How do you prepare the pollen on a slide? What medium is it in...or is it air dry laying on the slide?
...........

Great image, jeg101. I would like to ask the same questions that Charlie raised. Plus, what contrast techniques did you use? Oblique or just plain bright field?
Thank you!

[vasselle]

Bonjour a tous.
Pour observer les pollens il faut les dégraisser avec de alcool.
Voici un site pour ce que ça intéresse.
users.skynet.be/Champignons_passion/23pollen2.htm

Cordialement seb

[jeg101]

I placed the pollen sample directly onto a slide and photographed with a Canon EOS 550d through a trinocular scope with bright field illumination. The final image is a composite of several images at different focus points stacked in Photoshop. No oblique filters etc were used. Passionflower pollen is large in comparison with most, probably in the region of 180 - 200 µm (compared to 7 µm for Forget me not) and this makes it a good candidate for this technique. I've had varying success with pollen and stacking. Some of the larger pollen work very well eg Common Mallow (see one of my previous posts), Geranium and Passionflower. Although I've used bright field here I often use a photographic LED light for less transparent or textured grains. I didn't get a very good result using an LED light source for Passionflower but it works well for Common Mallow and Geranium pollen.

[charlie g]

thanks for the specifics, jeg101. I've often looked at fungi spores...no pollen ! You just sprinkled it (the pollen) on the side!

I may try and look at varieties of pollen...then try 'feeding' the smaller pollen to rather large rotifers...see if they are selective and reject the pollen. all the best, thanks for this terrific botanical microscopy you just explained.

Here in fingerlakes/NY, my son was just camping and kyaching (?sp?) at Green Lake/ Round Lake near Syracuse.

Both these lakes are unusual merromictic lakes...these bodies of water never have a spring 'turn over' of their bottom waters.

So biologists study the pollen collected over thousands of years in the bottom sediments..to picture climate trends, to picture plant communities transitions over centuries.

My questions jeg101: what on earth is it about tiny pollen that organisms don't feast on it the way woody and succulent plant tissues are broken down?What does that ancient pollen look like...like 'cleared diatom frustules'..with the external surface texture intact? Or like maple leavesd 'cleared to just the delicate vein patterns?

Or is it that in anerobic lake bottom sediments...everything gets preserved ( like the way peat bogs due the acids/the tannins preserv people?! Charlie guevara

[gekko]

Excellent and very beautiful images of the pollen and of the passion fruit macro.