Snap it {inside plants}

Today's Snap it theme is inside.

Excuse me while I become a botanist for a minute.
When I used to demonstrate in the undergraduate practical classes with Rob, one of the activities we did a lot of was hand sectioning of plants.
This was something that takes a little practise, to get a perfectly even slice of stem or leaf with a razor blade (and not slicing the top of your finger off). The plant material is sandwiched in preserved carrot to make it easier to slice. Then once all your little sections are swirling around in a bowl of water you would pick out a few nice ones, pop them on a glass microscope slide and apply some Toluidine blue stain. This stain is taken up by the different cells and if a cell wall contains lignin it will go sky blue or pectin it will go purple. A cover slide was placed carefully over the top and then onto the microscope platform to examine. That's when the fun begins, identifying the cell types and drawing them. This was the bit I used to help the students with.
Australian native plants have to deal with a very harsh environment. Examining their anatomy (how their cells are arranged) you can find out how they adapt to combat the stresses they must overcome to survive. Hiding stomata in furrows so that the plant doesn't lose too much water, thick waxy cuticles to reflect light, increased numbers of lignified cells to create hard leaves that protect the plant from wilting.
Here are a few of the resulting sections through various plants. I think they look stained glass windows.

Playing along over here today.

Snap it {up close}

This weeks theme is up close. Being a botanist and married to another, we tend to look at plants up close. That's how we can tell them apart, and whilst I can appreciate a whole forest, or a particularly majestic or gnarled tree, I think the true beauty of plants is most appreciated up close.

I can take no credit for the following images. Rob loves to take macro photos of Tasmanian natives, and has an eye for finding something a little unusual up close. The following are just a selected few (from the 90 images he forwarded to me) and of the several thousand he has.

All images Rob Wiltshire

Friday Flowers

We've had a quiet week this week at the hut. We're both busy at work. Rob's had a slight cold all week which is making him feel a little droopy. The weather has been a bit cool and damp and grey. So we've just hibernated a bit in the evenings, eating warming foods and reading on the window seat. I can't wait for daylight savings to begin this Sunday!

I thought I'd do a native plant post today. Although I don't work as a botanist at the moment, I can't help myself, as we walked (well raced as the dogs were so keen) along the path to Snug Falls last week, I kept checking with Rob I hadn't lost it. Picking out pretty wildflowers, checking I still knew their names (well at least the name I knew them as, damn taxonomists keep changing them!)

Rob's Monday practical was looking at three families of plants Myrtaceae, Ericaceae and Rhamnaceae. So after our little walk we found a few specimens to take into work the next day.
I thought I'd share a few of my favourite pictures from each family (all photos are Rob's of course!)




This little cutie is Euryomyrtus ramossissima, part of the Myrtaceae family, which is better known for the more showy eucalypts, melaleucas and callistemons. The leaves of this family all have that distinctive eucalypt smell if crushed. This particular plant is common in coastal heath vegetation, and is easy to pick out with the five white/pale pink petals.


The next two are both members of the Ericaceae family, known for their tough, often sharp little leaves. The one above is Leucopogon virgatus, I love their fluffy white petals, or more correctly their hairy corolla tube. Leucopogon is latin for white beard. The petals of all the species in this family are fused into a tube, sometimes they are open like this species, but the tube can also be shut like in Richea.

This even furrier flower is actually another species Pentachondra involucrata found in heathy woodlands.


Finally this little plant is part of the Rhamnaceae family, which contains some of my favourite plants. This is the species Stenanthemum pimeleoides, a rare prostrate shrub found on the east coast. It has tiny little flowers which are quite inconspicuous compared to the larger showy white bracts. Bract is just a term for a modified or specialised leaf associated with a flower (botanists love descriptive terms). Aren't the little heart shaped bracts adorable? I often pick the leaves of plants in this family just to rub their softness against my skin, if they could make lingerie out of them, I'd be the first in line to buy some!

Well there ends today's little botany lesson, hope you have a lovely weekend, so far we don't have any plans and that doesn't worry me a bit!

Friday Flowers

I'm afraid I'm cheating a little with today's flower pictures.
Although our quince trees have just started to flower, the weather has been terrible in the mornings so I haven't managed to get a photo. Luckily for me Rob has a vast collection of pictures so he dug a few out for me to share.

Quinces, we love their fruit, the perfume is like nothing else, we often buy a couple just to pop in the fruit bowl, so that the perfume wafts around the house. One of the first things Rob and I did together as a couple was take cuttings of a favourite quince tree at a friends place. Our success wasn't brilliant, but we ended up with four trees which are now planted at the block, perfectly positioned so that you can sit on the window seat and gaze at them.

Their flowers are quite beautiful don't you think? I especially love the buds, how they are all whorled up. You can see the similarity to roses can't you? Rob is running his Tasmanian plant taxonomy practicals at the moment, so we're in flower collecting mode (really just Sunday afternoon strolls finding flowers!) His introductory prac is called Supermarket Systematics. We go shopping and buy a trolley full of fruit and vegetables, and then the students get to classify the produce into their families (with the help of some of these photos as the flowers are the key to grouping plants). After the prac is over the students get to pick one of the items to take home! I miss helping Rob with these pracs, I used to quite like demonstrating in the classes.

Friday Flowers

Camellias - I love them. We have been collecting some of my favourites in pots for a while now. Just trying to work out the best place for them at the hut. The gardens at uni are a bit eclectic, but behind one of the big buildings is a lovely planting of camellias. Here are a couple of my favourites. I'm thinking of taking some cuttings from them in summer.

Friday Flowers

Another new regular post I hope- I've been following Sarah's blog Molly's Maison since the beginning of the year, and I love her Friday Flowers posts. It's nice to look around and find beauty in the garden, all year! So I hope you don't mind Sarah, but I'm joining you in regular flower appreciation.

Today is a new acquisition, that actually flowered a few weeks ago, a real snowdrop, Galanthus elwesii.
I've lusted after them for years, always bookmarked the page in my favourite bulb catalogues. But never been able to bring myself to actually buy one.

I saw this one at the markets a few weeks ago and could resist no longer.
Thank you Rob for capturing it so beautifully.

Botanising

Red seeds of Pittosporum bicolor (Photo: Rob Wiltshire)

This week is a little odd for me; I feel I should be at Mt Field National Park immersed in native plants with Rob.

Nothofagus gunnii - deciduous beech or fagus (Photo: Rob Wiltshire)

The week long field trip was the highlight of my undergraduate studies, and in later years I went along to help out with the students. Even though the itinerary is the same every year, there was always a new plant, fruit or flower to find.

Notelaea ligustrina – Native Olive (Photo: Rob Wiltshire)

It’s where I learnt that “the bush” is not one homogenous form, but varies with altitude, rainfall, aspect, soil type or underlying rock. I came to learn what species of plants are indicative of rainforest, dry or wet eucalypt forests, alpine or moorland. How each site is different even within these broad vegetation types. To break up the vegetation into layers: canopy, understory, and groundcover. How plants adapt to the environment with leaf shape and size. Or indeed how many species converge into a cushion or micro herbfield to survive in alpine areas. To identify plants by flowers, colour, leaf shape or smell.

This brings me to a few tools I wish I’d had when I was learning. EucaFlip and TreeFlip; Rob’s two publications to help anyone identify Tasmania’s native eucalypts and other trees. Now this may seem biased, but I think they are quite beautiful. You can find out more about them here. But it doesn’t tell you that upon request, a class set will be distributed to any school in Tasmania for free. Children love them, and are great at using them to identify trees, a wonderful way to get them interested in our native flora. So here’s hoping for a whole generation of Tasmanian botanists.