This morning I came across an old packet containing a Sphagnum sp that I had collected a couple of years ago on Dartmoor. Whilst I didn't manage an identification, I was captivated by the cell structure (I think this might be the first time I've looked at a Sphagnum under the microscope for 20 years. The structure was clear enough in a normal water-drop slide, but use of an old bottle of NBS's Light Green Aqueous really brought out the contrast between the cell walls and the cytoplasm. My microscope camera didn't handle the green tint very well,
Whole leaf, x40
but monochrome photographs proved to be excellent
Whole leaf, x40
At 100x depth of field became a little bit of an issue, but some great images of the leaf tip and leaf base
And finally the mid-leaf at x400
