Hi all. I loved doing these though I didn’t have much more than a macro on my camera and would love to be able to more “real” dissections where I can see where I’m cutting. Enjoy the journey of each plant….
Monkey Flower Mimulus guttatus DC. Family: Schrophulariaceae (Figwort Family)
https://www.thinglink.com/card/1867418073389073061
Twin Flower Linnaea borealis Linn. Family: Caprifoliaceae
https://www.thinglink.com/card/1867442178452619941
Nootka Lupine, Lupinus nootkatensis Donn Family Fabaceae (Leguminosae)
https://www.thinglink.com/card/1868140483939664358
Nootka Rose, Rosa nutkana C. Presl Family Rosaceae
https://www.thinglink.com/card/1868447323432944102
Thanks Kathy,
these all turned out very nice. You did a very good job at describing the plants using botanical terminology and describing each of the parts of the plant carefully to allow for possible identification. My favorite one is the Monkey flower, as I have not seen it on the mainland, I have only seen it on the Aleutians, it is a cute plant. I think your images show the didynamous stamen arrangement in Mimulus nicely with 2 longer and 2 shorter stamens. Some students have asked about the DIY microscope stand instructions for your phone https://www.instructables.com/10-Smartphone-to-digital-microscope-conversion/. I think this is a really nice solution, but of course a used dissecting microscope would be fabulous too.
Thanks again… I was confused about didynamous…
I will check out those directions. I need to figure out some lighting since if I put the phone with macro attachment over the specimen, the camera shaded the specimen. I did try some options of shining a light but couldn’t quite get it. I did enjoy these dissections and it was always a wonder to me to see the parts inside or that the flower had hair projections such as the monkey flower and the twin flowers. Others like the lupine were so amazing since everything was hidden in the keel and the mechanisms for pollination become really interesting.
I do hope to keep up with this and hope to continue learning maybe either with ethnobotany or other naturalist types ventures. I am still amazed with sedges…they are one of my favorite groups and it seems like a whole other glass with maybe grasses, so I didn’t tackle this time, but would love to watch those sedge videos from Systematic Botany. I’m not sure if they are still accessible.
Next step this summer is to do some natural dye experiments with some more commonly found plants. I’m making some salves from garden calendula and some local arnica that I planted in my garden, from overflow from spread at the Pratt museum. Maybe combine with plantain and/or yarrow. Now we need summer to not end!