Microphotography: Portulaca grandiflora

I'm unclear on the specifics of where and how, but the husband, knowing that I've been looking for a microscope for some time, somehow obtained a used one for me. Which is one example of how he's the best husband ever.

The catches -- and of course there are catches -- are:

1) Okay, I don't know the proper names for anything here, but I'm going to call that thing in the middle, with the four things sticking out from it, the microscope's "udder," because that's what it looks like. Each of those barrels on the udder has a different level of magnification (I don't know what levels of magnification, because I cannot decipher what the barrels say), only two of which appear to function.
2) It's a regular, old-school, 1960s-ish microscope, so it wasn't designed with digital photography in mind. If the camera lens is not exactly centered over the eyepiece, the camera doesn't register anything being there at all. Likewise if it isn't precisely the right height above the eyepiece. My hands shake way too much to get pictures by holding the camera in the right spot myself, and although we do have a tripod, the base of the microscope is just large enough to get in the way of the tripod's legs, so I can get within about a centimeter (0.4 in.) of the eyepiece, but then no further. Except! When I took the below pictures, I actually could get the tripod directly over the eyepiece. I just couldn't do it again a few days later when I moved the whole thing outside to try to get a better set of pictures in stronger light, and I don't know why, and the whole thing was very frustrating. Which leads us to the third problem, which is:
3) Even when I do manage to line the camera up, using the tripod, the amount of light coming through the eyepiece is small, so my camera uses long exposure times, which results in blurry pictures, even at its best.
4) And at its worst, the camera autofocus chooses to focus on the eyepiece itself, instead of the image in the eyepiece. Or it focuses on some part of the microscope outside the eyepiece, so I get a perfect shot of the top of the udder but the actual image I'm trying to capture is too fuzzy to make out.

So the point is that there are some problems with this, and you should, consequently, not expect to see a lot of these pictures until such time as I can figure out how to get better ones. And I would love some suggestions from other people, because I know there's got to be someone out there who's taken photographs through a microscope's eyepiece successfully.

Having said all of that, there have been some pretty cool moments with the microscope already, which I will hopefully be able to share with you someday. Portulaca grandiflora seeds, my only successful photos to date, turn out to be much more interesting than the gray, metallic dust they appear to be with the naked eye. For example, I had always imagined them as more or less spherical, since a lot of seeds are, but they turn out to have a specific, weird shape, somewhere between a comma and a nautilus:

At the higher magnification, they also have an unexpected texture, which is probably the coolest and most surprising thing I've seen in weeks. It didn't photograph well, of course:

The pattern is sort of approximately that of a bunch of tiny interlocked cogwheels, covering the whole surface of the seed. Which is even stranger in combination with the overall iridescent metallic gray color. (I now suspect that Portulaca grandiflora are robotic plants.)

I also tried for photos of the pollen, but that went even less well, and wasn't very interesting:

And those are the only actual pictures I'm able to provide to you at this point. Possible coming attractions, if I can figure out how to take the pictures:

A lot of leaves are hairier than I would have guessed. (Pedilanthus being the most surprising.) Though most leaves are disappointingly boring.

The serrated edges on Yucca guatemalensis are a lot less regular in shape and spacing than I expected.

Cryptanthus pollen is even more dull than Portulaca pollen: basically just irregular little white rounded things. At least Portulaca pollen has a color to it.

Ceropegia woodii flowers look exactly the way you would expect them to look, and brought to mind both "eyelashes" and "houseflies." Aeschynanthus speciosus flowers are boring and look just like they do with the naked eye, except bigger. Neofinetia roots didn't do much for me. (Think "styrofoam.") The Euphorbia fungus (yes, I still have Euphorbia fungus) looked exactly like I expected (sort of a creeping white net), and was dull.

Broadleaf plantain (Plantago major) really does have flowers (when you let it bloom), and the flowers are actually sort of pretty. I mean, if they were twenty times bigger, you'd grow the plant as an ornamental: there's a white, fluffy bottlebrush sort of stamen, with lots of white spherical pollen grains, and then the stigmas, or something I take to be the stigmas, are sort of shaped like white tulips with purple stripes down the center of each petal. (Plantago major is high on the list of stuff to get pictures of, whenever I figure out how to do that, but you can get some idea from the picture here at Wikimedia Commons. There must be some natural variation, though, because that's a darker, solid purple than what I was seeing.)

Another high-priority item: Anthurium spadices. It's a little easier for me to believe that those are flowers, now that I've seen them close-up. (I'd link to a photo, but I couldn't find one easily on Google image search.) It should probably be noted that they're still not pretty. At best, interesting.

Spider mites are every bit as horrifying as you'd think they would be, and they will continue to suck sap out of a leaf even after it's been removed from the plant. They also do this weird thing where they either shake their back legs like a dog getting a belly rub, or they rub their rearmost pair of legs together like a person trying to warm their hands. I only saw it do that once, and it was fast. I was so surprised and freaked out by there being, suddenly, movement, that I can't tell you exactly what it was. It also convinced me to throw the leaf in the trash more or less immediately afterward.

I think I've seen spider mite eggs now, though they weren't all the same color, so I'm not 100% on that. (They were all somewhere in the yellow or yellow-orange color range, but the darkness varied a lot, from pale yellow down to almost black.)

Some unknown white thing that was on our lettuce was one of the scariest things I've ever seen. It somehow managed to evoke deep-sea crabs, skeletons, spiders, and ghosts simultaneously, and I'm pretty sure seeing them come into focus in the microscope took a year off my life. The best match I found on-line for them was here, on a forum where they were identified as the shed exoskeletons of a molted aphid here. (The pictures at the link aren't magnified enough to be upsetting, FWIW.) So "skeleton" and "ghost" were actually pretty close. That also explains why they weren't moving.

So the point is, there's a lot of potential for interesting new posts, if only I can figure out how to get the pictures. It's going to take some experimentation, and I only have so much time, so if anybody has any relevant expertise, I'd sure appreciate hearing from you.

Random plant event: Ceropegia woodii

This is not the first time I've posted a picture of a Ceropegia woodii flower, but this is a much better photo than the other was. This is also a bit special in that it's my own personal plant blooming, not just one at work.

Despite the rumors that the flowers smell like rotting meat, I haven't been able to detect any smell from this flower. Possibly I was trying at the wrong time of day, though.

They Grow Up So Fast, Part 3

I've had a wouldn't-it-be-nice sort of project to get all the plants photographed this summer, or at least to try to get decent pictures of 1) the species/varieties for which I have no good photos already or 2) the ones that have grown significantly since the last time I took pictures. For most of the summer, though, I've been thwarted by the weather, lack of time, or whatever.

Then a couple weeks ago, we got a run of three days that weren't completely unbearable outside, and I dragged plants around and got like 1000 photos (literal) to sort through, which kept me occupied until . . . well, until basically now.

And then I thought: oh, wait, what was I going to do with all these pictures again?

So this post is an attempt to justify the photos I've taken already, as a way of psyching myself up to take more (hopefully the weather will cooperate Thursday and Friday mornings). Also, I thought that people who had sent me plants in the past might be interested in how they were faring here.

So. This isn't a comprehensive list, both for space reasons and because I don't have all the plants photographed yet. You shouldn't assume that if a plant you sent me isn't on this list, that means it's dead.

Though in some cases, yeah, that's what it means.

Philodendron mexicanum

May 2010. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
I didn't have much hope for this one when it first arrived; the original sender said it had been accidentally severed from the main plant and wasn't rooted or anything: basically just the two leaves you see in the photo plus a little bit of stem.

Dec 2010. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
But it rooted like a champ anyway, and seven months later, it was an established plant that was outgrowing its spot in the basement.

Jul 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
It's not a common plant in the trade, and I'm not sure why, because it seems to be easy enough to grow. I could see how it might have a problematic habit (it's a climber, so I suppose it might suffer a bit if you don't have something for it to climb), but I'm still enjoying mine.

Anthurium schlechtendahlii

Aug 2010. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
If I thought Philodendron mexicanum was hopeless when it arrived, I was almost angry about receiving Anthurium schlechtendalii. Surely these tiny seedlings were never going to survive, and this was a waste of time.

Feb 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
And yet. I kept it in the basement, under lights, and kept it covered to maintain high humidity, and it actually did quite well there. Eventually it outgrew the spot in the basement, so I moved it to the husband's office (also under lights) and kept it in a large V-shaped vase with a plant saucer on top, and it soon outgrew that spot as well.

Jul 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm) though it has since been moved to a 6 in / 15 cm pot.
So now it's in the living room, without any covering, and it's going to have to make do with the humidity levels it finds in there.

I can't say A. schlechtendalii has been free of problems -- it insists on playing with spider mites, even though I've forbidden it from doing so and explained at length how they're a bad influence. The leaves have also been yellowing in the last few months, which may or may not be mite-related (also possible: too much light, nutrient over-/underdose). Still, though, this is the best I've ever managed to do with any of the foliage Anthuriums, and damned near miraculous considering the starting point.

Sansevieria hargesiana

May 2010. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
I received Sansevieria hargesiana when at a particularly low point in my Sansevieria-growing confidence level, but it's survived me anyway.

Jan 2011. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm) though it has since been moved to a 4 in / 10 cm pot.
This is a plant I don't have a good July 2011 photo for, but it hasn't changed that much since January (the plantlet on the right is perhaps slightly bigger now), so this still works. My confidence level is slowly edging back up again, but Sansevierias still make me nervous.

Euphorbia flanaganii var. cristata
Sep 2010. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
The Euphorbia flanaganii var. cristata from Cactus Jungle has had some ups and downs; it didn't do much for quite a while after arriving, possibly because I was scared to feed it much.

July 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
It's done better since I started using the fertilizer containing trace elements. (This is a common feature of my relationships with Euphorbias -- unlike some plants, they won't try to grow if the nutrients aren't there. Almost all of my plants have begun new growth this spring or summer, even the ones that had done nothing for years prior.) I did have to cut off a piece that was dying at one point this spring, but other than that, it's been a pretty quiet, well-behaved plant.

Pereskia godseffiana

May 2011. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
This was a very recent acquisition -- I've only had it two months -- but I'm pleased that it has, in fact, decided to root and grow.

Jul 2011. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm) though it has since been moved to a 4 in / 10 cm pot.
Not surprised. Just pleased. Pereskias are apparently very easy to root; everyone says so.

The cutting's even grown a new set of tiny, bright pink leaves since the second photo was taken.

Agave americana

Aug 2010. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
Agave americana may become a problem in the near future. I knew they got big, but I didn't think this one would get so big, so quickly.

Jul 2011. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
I don't really have a suitable spot for it at the moment, so I guess I'll have to keep my fingers crossed that it slows down until I do. It was never likely to reach full maturity inside the house, but I would like to have it a couple more years, at least.

Agave americana medio-picta alba

Aug 2010. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
The variegated version, on the other hand, is growing much more slowly. I mean, yes, I expect it to be slower, because it doesn't have as much chlorophyll to work with, but it's a lot slower than it should be. It even gets some full sun, which the non-variegated one doesn't. (The non-variegated one is in the basement under plant lights, so it may have more consistent light, and maybe even brighter light, but they should still be pretty comparable.)

Jul 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
It's still grown, though. I can't complain. Agaves are unpleasant to handle and will eventually get too big, but they're really very cooperative houseplants otherwise, if you have enough light for them.

Begonia 'Tiger Kitten'

Aug 2010. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
Begonia 'Tiger Kitten' arrived in rough shape (plants with brittle, fleshy leaves like Begonia, Episcia, Saintpaulia, etc. tend to be difficult to ship), so I wound up cutting one of the leaves into sections and starting new plants in vermiculite. The original died, but several of the leaf-sections grew. Unfortunately, only one survived being transplanted to soil.

Jul 2011. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
That one plant, though, is doing well. It looks a bit darker and less colorful than the original (it's probably getting too much light), but at least it didn't die. Rhizomatous begonias are a decent substitute for rex begonias -- they're considerably less fussy, and look close enough as far as I'm concerned.

Eriobotrya japonica

Aug 2010. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
Eriobotrya japonica (loquat) hasn't done much since arriving, and I'm not sure if that's because it's naturally a slow plant, or if I'm doing something wrong.

Jul 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
I've been warned that they're prone to spider mites, but so far that hasn't been a problem for me. I haven't really had any problems at all, actually, aside from the slowness.

Ceropegia woodii, variegated

Aug 2010. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
I had some concerns about this one, because previous attempts to root Ceropegia woodii either failed immediately, or succeeded so slowly that by the time there was new growth, I didn't care anymore. This was pretty slow, too, but once it got going, it made up for the lost time.

Jul 2011. Pot: 3 inches (7.5 cm).
Such a strange little plant, though.

Hoya obovata

Jan 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
Hoyas are kind of upsetting me lately. They grow great for a year, two years, three years, and then suddenly die for no reason. This has now happened with H. carnosa 'Krimson Queen' (though I managed to salvage cuttings, which are doing well), H. pubicalyx (no salvaging possible), and most recently H. tsangii 'DS-70' (we'll see if cuttings can be salvaged; so far about 25% have died too). I don't know why this keeps happening, but it's a pattern now.

Jul 2011. Pot: 4 inches (10 cm).
So I'm scared for H. obovata. Its behavior here has given me no reason to worry so far; it's a champ, in fact. On the other hand, it's a Hoya, so I worry anyway.

Breynia disticha 'Roseo-Picta'

Nov 2009. Pot: 6 inches (15 cm).
I didn't get a picture of my Breynia disticha when I first got it (October 2008), but I'd estimate it was about half as tall as in the above picture. It's always been a steady grower, if not a particularly fast one. During last winter and spring, I cut it back a few times (to get cuttings to root) and started feeding it differently, and it's responded and responded and responded:

Jul 2011. Pot: 8 inches (20 cm), though it has since been moved to a 9-10 inch / 23-25 cm pot.
There have been a few short-lived problems with spider mites, and it drops a lot of leaves whenever I let it get too dry, but neither has been particularly serious. I'd like it if I could get it to produce the multicolored leaves I know it's capable of, but even without that, it's getting to be a favorite plant.

Random plant event: Ceropegia woodii flowers and seed pods

I'm not sure if it's just that I've completely lost track of what time of year it is, or if Ceropegia woodii (string of hearts) just flowers intermittently year-round, but it's doing it again, and I wasn't expecting it.


Then there's this older picture (from October), of the actual seed pods, though the seed pods kind of disappeared at some point during the early winter and I'm not sure where they went or who was responsible. WCW was reworking some of the Ceropegia hanging baskets at one point; maybe she did something with them.


I'm not a particularly big fan of the plant; it usually strikes me as being a little sparse. Which is to say, I'm not opposed to the plant per se, but I don't very often see any that I consider presentable. Which in fairness could be my problem, not the plant's.