Allium anther

[Johan]

Note this is about as rubbish and incomplete a stack that I have ever produced, and I'm bailing on doing this again just because I've had a stinky day at work. But rather than bin it I thought I'd share it, might be of interest to a biologist.

 

It's an allium anther, about 1mm or so across, at about 5:1. What I find interesting and why I bothered to post it was because it's interesting that UVIFL shows structures in this case that visible light doesn't show as well. The pink on the left is just an indistinguishable mess but on the right these bump things are clearly visible.

 

No clue what they are though :D

 

[DaveO]

Welcome to the wonderful world (I think) of "conical cells". Thanks to instruction by Bjørn, (remember I'm a stupid chemist so didn't have a clue about these botanical details) parts of flowers most involved in pollination often have conical cells on their surfaces which in UV reflection show as very dark or even black. My personal bet is that the physical size of the conical cells leads to destructive cancellation (like a quarter wave stub or an anechoic cone) so it's a physical effect, not due to absorption by pigments. I'd be VERY interested if you were game to make an estimate of the vertical size of those cones. If they really are responding like anechoic cones they should be about 90 nm high to be really effective at say 360 nm UV wavelengths. Google "conical cells" and you may find that there are lots of ideas about their biological function. I see them very often on Aussie native flowers, I'll sort out a few 100% views.

 

Here's a visible light shot of eucalyptus blossom filaments

 

and in UV

 

here's a "trigger plant" in UV

 

this is from a tinsel lily

 

Now you can see why I waste so much time looking at my UV images @100% and saying Whoaaa

 

Dave