Pollen Producers

Would you believe this is part of a plant? This is the anther of a sand rock-cress flower. It is responsible for producing the pollen that will be released into the environment to fertilize the eggs of another sand rock-cress plant.

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Pollen Producers

What am I looking at?

This image shows a chemically cleared anther in blue and red (1) and pollen grains in yellow (2) from the flower of a sand rock-cress plant.

Biology in the background

The anther is the part of the flower that produces pollen. Pollen is like sperm in animals that reproduce sexually. Numerous pollen grains are produced and then released into the environment, where they hope to join with the egg of another plant of the same species. Also, like sperm, pollen carries half of the genetic material that its eventual offspring will contain. The egg contains the other half of the genetic material, plus the nutrients required by a developing embryo.

The pollen grains from this plant are about 25 micrometers in diameter, or roughly three times smaller than the width of a human hair. The anther of this flower is about 0.6 millimeters, or roughly eight times larger than the width of a human hair.

Technique

This image was created by chemically clearing the flower tissue, staining the anther with aniline blue stain, and then imaging the resulting sample using confocal microscopy.