Development of Crystal Idioblasts
All Dieffenbachia leaves we've looked at have had crystal idioblasts,
even the youngest. When do they develop? At right you can see a
cross-section of a leaf bud just beginning to open; it contains some
crystals. Studying leaf buds by the methods we normally use, however,
is difficult, as they tend to come apart during processing. To get
around this we are working on clearing stem pieces containing the buds
(which hide inside the stems until it's time to start unfolding), and then
embedding the stem piece in wax. We will then be able to prepare thin
sections of the pieces and look at what kinds of crystals are present in
even very young leaf buds. Currently Brad Howard is making the first
attempts to embed processed stems.Another approach would be to isolate
idioblasts from leaf buds dissected out of the stems. Randy Sharp
tried this in the fall of 2005, with interesting results we have not fully
analyzed yet. |
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