It's a Pollen

Somehow we got interested in pollen, probably because a number of us have allergies, and I thought it would be interesting to see under the microscope.

We started with lily pollen, and then daffodil pollen.

We dissected a daffodil to see the pistil , stamen and anthers.  We looked at the anthers to see how the pollen was dispersed.

Then we took a bloomed out daffodil and opened the ovule to look at the unripe seeds. Since the seed coats hadn't formed yet, we could even see tiny embryonic plants within the seeds!

Then we looked at all the other flowers we could find.

Once we pushed back the petals, we could see pistils and stamen on all of them, even the pansies!

We looked at the different pollens as well, but they were all quite similar, even the pollen from the hazel catkin.

I'd like to show them grass, tree and weed pollen as the year rolls around so that they can see why some people tend to be allergic to certain pollens.

It's always fun to spend some time looking under a microscope!