Anyway, in a nutshell the new protocols are working well and I've just been able to stain & mount a few trial-runs sectioned a couple of days ago. I've used mainly Safranin alone for the ovary slides and a little Fast-green also for the stem sections shown here....
A few colourful pictures, some labelled for content - sorry if I've overdone the labels, I get a little carried away and label everything I see sometimes!
This is a nice result I think - it's (yes - you guessed it!
) a LS of the bottom of the flower-head of the Sonchus.oleraceus 'weed' otherwise known as the 'Smooth sowthistle' here in the UK. It's similar to a Dandelion in that it has (yellow) 'flowers' that actually consist of dozens of tiny 'florets' sitting atop a 'capitulum' - a sort of platform if you like. Anyway this is a section (LS) through the base of one such capitulum and shows a row of floret-bottoms - actually each floret's ovary is seen sectioned with the single ovule within.
The Safranin really has shown a remarkable degree of metachromasia here and has, all on it's lonesome, differentiated various tissue-types quite distinctly to my eye I think...
If the brightness, intensity and metachromasia here is in any way connected to the new mountant or Histoclear II then I'm very pleased indeed!
and another section similarly stained, vascular bundles within the base of the capitulum are clearly differentiated and almost appear to be approaching a violet tone... The colours here all match what I see through the 'scope - I used a custom WB set from the blank background for this series of images just to make sure.
Here's a close-up of the interestingly-stained nuclei of an ovule - the nuclei have themselves differentiated into 'blobs' and the main nuclear material - I think the 'blobs' may even be pores and the main nuclear envelope differentiated around them - but it's only a guess without looking at the tomes!
Great to see such detail though at this early stage - the slides are still wet as usual! 
and, (actually I think the 'blobs' may be too large to be pores - I'll take a look tomorrow or when the slides are set, with the x100 oil...)
This section is of the stem (TS) of a Sonchus.asper, the close relative of the above S.oleraceus, although I've since learned of many microscopic differences during my study and slide-making of these two fine fellows! Here's part of the stem TS of said S.asper, stained with Safranin and just a touch of half-strength Fast-green. Apologies for the rather unrestrained labelling - I got a little overenthusiastic!
Here are some details, a vascular bundle (epidermis of stem is towards bottom of picture, pith is towards top)..
A closer-in look at the vascular-cambium/phloem boundary - with a few sieve-plates that were luckily close to the sectioning plane
I've many more but this is all I've time to post tonight - it's now 1:30 am here in the UK..
I hope you like them - I had great fun making them.
