A few extra Aloe pics with colourful staining

[mrsonchus]

Here are a few that I took of some slides that have now dried and were stained with Safranin & Fast-green FCF (no idea what the FCF means, couldn't find it on the web surprisingly..)
I love 'wandering around' my slides and exploring them, I always find new things that I new nothing about when I may have last perused a slide!
Here are a few colourful pictures from some recent wanderings through my slides whilst labeling and filing..
All of Aloe-leaf in TS - finally I've got the measure of the difficult Aloe-tissue, and the Fast-green is behaving after I bought powder and made a solution at 0.5% in 75% OH...

Here's a section at 10µ that has far more detail in the tissue than the earlier 15µ version I showed previously, amazing how tissue can vary so much within the same species (as in this case I think) or even plant....

The 10µ is from our Daughter's huge Aloe and has far more complexity and a thicker cortex, the rather more 'basic-looking' tissue is from the tragically puny plant that stands on one of my desks... Both sections are to scale with each other and from similarly-sized leaf pieces for comparison, although they are from different places along the respective leaves I think..

The 10µ section thickness is definitely the optimum for this pesky Aloe tissue I think now for certain..

ws_aloe_comparison_1.jpg (191.08 KiB) Viewed 3811 times

I also used a home-mixed tissue-softening formula for the 10µ sections, with very good results indeed - stopped all tissue damage from hard parts within the tissue such as tough vaculature or raphides etc found to be troublesome in the Aloe from my desk.

A few more;
Amazes me how a nucleus may be cleanly-sectioned when the tissue is properly infiltrated with wax right down to the intra-cellular level, this one's cut across beautifully..

ws_half_nucleus.jpg (95.61 KiB) Viewed 3811 times

A cleanly-cut vascular bundle is a fine thing to see, the stain has picked out the details nicely I think.

ws_aloe_vasc_bundle.jpg (259.99 KiB) Viewed 3811 times

A couple of stomata, couldn't resist them, you're probably a bit sick of the sight of them by now! The Safranin/Fast-green stain combination is very pleasing to my eye and also gives good differentiation.

ws_aloe_leaf_stomate_closed.jpg (175.89 KiB) Viewed 3811 times

and finally,

ws_x100_aloe_leaf_TS-0018.jpg (112.98 KiB) Viewed 3811 times

Hope you like them, I'm off to bed!
Back soon!

[KurtM]

I love 'wandering around' my slides and exploring them, I always find new things...

Magnificent! And I know exactly what you're talking about; I have some diatom strew slides that I can revisit a year or two later and still find new things on, and it's all the more satisfying being slides I prepared myself.

I don't think you need worry about anyone getting tired of stomata details. If anyone gives you trouble just let me know and I'll have the bouncer on 'em before you can say phylem.

[Crater Eddie]

Gorgeous! And fascinating! Who could get tired of this stuff??
CE

[mrsonchus]

Many thanks chaps, great to share the adventures!
I came across this early Aloe-leaf attempt from April last year, in the 'early days'... This was a 'state-of-my-art' picture back then

ws_x4_slide3_02.jpg (32.5 KiB) Viewed 3803 times

now I have this..

ws_10mic_aloe_leaf_TS.jpg (177.37 KiB) Viewed 3803 times

Makes me wince somewhat now, but back then I was thrilled to get a result that looked like something! I remember the first time I got something onto a slide that actually had a group of 'bits' that actually looked like cells, let alone tissue and full-on sections!

Here's an early section for those that may remember my adventures with Carex-leaf TS...

ws_700x525_LT1-0001.jpg (46.76 KiB) Viewed 3803 times

eventually I got to these..

ws_700x525_ws_quick_pic-0008.jpg (104.17 KiB) Viewed 3803 times

Great to look back on those early forays into this world of the microscope-section!

[vasselle]

Bonjour
Superbes photos en plus très bien expliqué.
Merci pour le partage.
Cordialement seb

[molehill]

Skilled slide preparation and fantastic pictures

[gekko]

Super! (as always).

[JimT]

John B. you are the master. Love the edge on views of closed and open stomatas. I am torn between throwing my homemade microtome away or to keep trying. Just kidding, you are an incentive to keep at it

We can all see in these posst how you have honed your skill and you obviously do know your way around plant cells.

JimT

[mrsonchus]

John B. you are the master. Love the edge on views of closed and open stomatas. I am torn between throwing my homemade microtome away or to keep trying. Just kidding, you are an incentive to keep at it

We can all see in these posst how you have honed your skill and you obviously do know your way around plant cells.

JimT

Your very generous Jim, thank you!
I love Botany, the more I see, the more I want to learn. I love the process of discovering structures etc in my sections and rushing off to find out (or try to at least..) what on earth they are, what they do, and what form they take in other similar & dissimilar plants! I've been reading lately about the plant plasma-membrane (the 'bag' within a plant cell's relatively rigid cell-wall that contains the cell proper as it were) and the way substances and chemical-signals are moved selectively across this membrane, absolutely fascinating to learn, this was an offshoot of my investigation of the process of simple diffusion as when a stain may enter some tissue-types in a 'blanket-staining' process - one thing as always leads to another, my own body-weight in books gradually spreads-out around me and 3-hrs flash past! Having a fantastic time!

Thank you for your very kind encouragement! Made me smile!

[mrsonchus]

Many thanks chaps, great to know others are enjoying the adventures! You all keep me raring-to-go!

[zzffnn]

Amazing results and story! Thank you John B. for sharing!