Beyond the Human Eye

It's too cold in winter to spend a lot of time paddling around in rock pools but you can always take a few samples of seaweed home o...

Some seeds need to be sown while others - like wild oat Avena fatua - sow themselves. This is...

This is a thin section of the lower stem of water milfoil Myriophyllum sp. , stained with the fluorochrome calcofluor which binds to th...

The surface of plants (with a few exceptions, such as those that live submerged under water) is covered with a tough, transparent, wa...

Every time I lift the lid of our garden compost bin scores of these tiny insects, each smaller than the diameter of the head of a pin, ...

When I was exploring the old microscope slides belonging to the mysterious 'Sid' that I mentioned in my previous post I came acro...

Many years ago, when I was a student, I was given this box of old prepared microscope slides. I can't remember who the donor was but the...

Hops Humulus lupulus have an impressive ability to climb supports - either up other plants or, in the case of cultivated hops, up poles in ...

These are bacterial root nodules on the root of runner bean Phaseolus coccineus . Each nodule contains a population of Rhizobium bacteria ...

Roots are the most neglected parts of plants, perhaps because they are out of sight and - superficially at least - lack the intrinsic aesthe...