For some surreal images of pollen, take a
visit to the Public Domain Review which is featuring a rare work entitled ‘Ueber
den Pollen’ (1837), or ‘Pollen up close’.
Fantastic illustrations of various strains
of pollen in extreme magnification, as featured in the book by St Petersburg-based
German pharmacist and chemist Carl Julius Fritzsche.
German speakers can take advantage of a key
identifying each pollen type pictured see these descriptions.
In addition to the plates is a modern,
black and white shot taken at the Dartmouth
Electron Microscope Facility at Dartmouth College. It produced a photograph
showing pollen strains at similar magnifications to those shown in Fritzsche’s
book (around 500 times magnification)
It focuses on pollen from a variety of
common plants: sunflower (Helianthus annuus), morning glory Ipomoea purpurea,
hollyhock (Sildalcea malviflora), lily (Lilium auratum), primrose (Oenothera
fruticosa) and castor bean (Ricinus communis). The image is magnified some
x500, so the bean-shaped grain in the bottom left corner is about 50 μm long.
By Pamela Kelt
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