Lovely clear images, and I really like the 'grayish' tones too.
I've dug-out a few early pollen images, some fresh, some stained & mounted, that you may like to have a quick look at old chap...
Here's a crocus-pollen stacked picture from quite a while back now - I like the colours and the look of the live grains at least as much as that of sectioned and mounted material for pollen.
This is a nice and thick 15µ section to keep grains mostly intact (although they probably 'have no backs' as it were as they're about 32µ in diameter as I remember). I performed some rather unusual pp to try to get a SEM-feel for the images. The sculpting of the exine is surprisingly well caught as a 'pseudo 3D' look I think...
Here a pollen-tube has emerged from the grain and begun it's long journey to a waiting ovule - again fresh in OH I think,
A couple of collages with a few different examples,
and
This is a tetrad of Epilobium (a weed 'Willowherb' in the UK) grains with what I learned were 'viscin threads' that aid the distribution of the grains presumably by animal or insect... This was unknown to me before I chanced upon them in these pictures of the time,
Here it is with a couple of sectioned pollen pictures, the Daffodil pollen (I think) is sectioned at 1µ - one of my very first 1µ sections while the Sonchus (a weed 'Milkweed' or 'Sowthistle' here in the UK) grains have cut nicely to reveal their thin exine 'ribs' and their fine points,
Anyway, I'd better not add any more - sorry I got a bit carried away - pollen was the very first thing that inspired me to buy my first 'scope and join this fine forum - almost two years ago now - time flies by!
I hope you enjoy them.
