Materials for prepping stained root squash slides
3.96758
digital color photograph
Born digital
Photographic image
January 11 2019
Materials for prepping stained root squash slides. Root tips are fixated while plants are actively growing and then stored at ~4C until ready to view under the scope. When ready to observe, root tips are prepared first by digesting the cell walls using a combination of enzymes. Once cell walls are digested, fixed cells from the root apical meristem are mounted and stained on the slide using modified carbol fuchsin. The carbol fuchsin stains nuclear chromosomes enabling us to view the number of chromosomes held within a single cell. This photograph was taken as a part of the "Genome Size and Ploidy Surveys" project.
The Morton Arboretum, Lisle, Illinois
