Just a beautiful preparation

Here we see the images of a beautiful preparation made by Mike Smith. The cross section trough the ovary of Buddleia globosa shows many details. Note that the ovary (and later the seed capsule) is covered in tangled hairs (stellate-tomentose) and how the base of the style is also hairy. The second fluorescence image shows this in detail.

Buddleia globosa is strikingly different from most butterfly-bushes. It is a shrub with round, orange-yellow flower clusters. These are in curiously shaped panicles. B. globosa originates from Chile and Argentina where it is cultivated for medicinal purposes. It occurs at an altitude of 2000 m. It is not a striking bloomer, the flowers are rather small compared to the large, coarse leaves. The flowers look just like marbles hanging from the tips of the branches. It flowers less noticeably, but this buddleia smells all the more. It grows quite slowly so that it hardly needs pruning. It lives short and is not completely hardy.

© www.willemsmicroscope.com