Microscopy of a Copelandia

[cleanjar]

The blue meanie on brown stuff and it's microscopy in purple:

[cleanjar]

More in purple stain:

[cleanjar]

A couple more:

[cleanjar]

And a spore image:

[Nzo]

looks cool, thanx for the pics

[Alan Rockefeller]

Did you use a purple stain?

Cool encrusted cheilocystidia!

[Workman]

That must be a purple stain. The structures are Pleurocystidia and their characteristic shape is what distinguishes the Copelandia from the rest of the Panaeolus. The encrustations are oxalate crystals.

The Copelandia are my favorite type of mushroom to examine under the microscope. The structures are large and clearly visible even under 400x.

The microscopy images are great. To determine a likely species the sizes of the spores and other structures are needed. If you can keep the sizes of the images the same between shots, try including an image of a slide with some blood cells. They are close to 8 microns in diameter and can give a general idea of spore size.

At least one shot of the pleurocystidia without stain is a good idea. They are typically pigmented brownish yellow and don't require a stain, but one species has green tipped pleurocystidia (P. chlorocystis) and you don't want to miss that by covering it up with stain.

A shot of the cheilocystidia can be had by trimming off the leading edge of the gill and looking at that. They are clear and the stain might help view those.

Keep up the good work! I love seeing new Copelandia.

[Lazlo]

Originally Posted by cleanjar

More in purple stain:

[cleanjar]

Oh, thanks. The stain is violet and I was just playing around with it for the first time.

My bottle of red stain is actually blue, I'm not sure what that is all about.

I am very new to microscopy, but I am enjoying it getting a little better with it each time.

Eventually I will have a eyepiece to do measurements.

I get the images by just holding my digital up to the eyepiece, all the photos here might have been at 400X's and then I was using the cameras zoom to get closer.