spore identification

[patrick25]

How powerful a microscope do i need to look at individual spores? I can't seem to spot anything on the one I've got which goes to x900 magnification, i thought that would be enough!

also. . . . . living in derbyshire now. . . . when can i sexpect to start seeing morels? no signs as yet. is it just a matter of waiting for some warm rain?

Any answers would be much appreciated!

Pat

[NickCantle]

Hi Patrick, welcome to WAB.

x900 should be enough to see spores with quite a bit of detail. Generally speaking, amateur mycologists will use anything up to x1000. What method are you using? Try a squash- take a teeny piece of gill edge and squash it with some water (if you've got no stain) and at least that way you might see some hyphae structure and maybe cystidia. Secondly, which species are you viewing under the scope? If you can find one at this time of year, try a Coprinus species as they have quite large spores.

As for the Morels, I think it's a little early Keep an eye out, but I think they'll start popping up at the end of the month

[Chris Yeates]

Originally Posted by patrick25

How powerful a microscope do i need to look at individual spores? I can't seem to spot anything on the one I've got which goes to x900 magnification, i thought that would be enough!
. . . Pat

hi Pat

Nick is quite correct that it's probably a question of technique; setting the miscoscope up correctly is very important. Practice looking at shop-bought cultivated mushrooms Agaricus bisporus - as the gills start to turn brown carefully remove one and place it on a slide (no water, no cover-slip at this stage) and carefully focus down on to the surface with a x10 objective and then a x40 or whatever you have; with practice you will see the developing spores and rather interestingly will see that they are in pairs - very unusually as most 'mushrooms and toadstools' form their spores in fours (like the fours on dice); then make a spore print from a ripe one, small drop of water and a coverslip and you will definitely see spores!

here is another fungus which has spores in twos Laccaria fraterna (a relative of the Deceiver - which has them in fours) - see the inset at upper left; this was taken looking down on a gill as descibed above, at x400


it does take time and you soon learn - as Nick rightly points out - that looking at a small piece of material is more useful and easier to work with

as you go up to higher magnifications you start to lose out on other positives like depth of field so a higher magnification is not always a better one

I'm sure you will find lots of people here ready and willing to help out

best wishes

Chris

[ron1863]

Good thread Patrick, especially as I have been looking around for a misroscope so will follow this thread with interest.

[mollisia]

Hello,

may be it is important to stress, that it is not the magnification in itself what is important for a good result, but also the capability of the objectivs. It is very important, which numerical aperture (I hope I translate the terms correct ....) your objectiv has. Good objectivs x40 have a n.a of 0.65, those of x100 have 1.25 or 1.3. That means in the case of the x40 objectiv, that it is aible to magnify up to 650x magnification. Therefore the combination of eye pieces with 20x magnification with a x40 or a x100 objective is without sense. A x100 objectiv can produce a magnification of 1250x or 1300x and no more! All what is above that is just bigger, but no additional information are produced. You can comare that to a xerox copy: Lay a gill on a copier and copy in double magnification. Do that 1000 times. You don't believe you have got a magnification of x2000 like that, do you?
So that is the main problem with cheap microscopes for kids. They have objectives of poor quality which are not able to give the magnification the microscope mathematically might bring (with powerful and expensive objectives).

The 2nd problem in cheap microscopes is the light, which can't be light enough. But usually it is to dark, especially when you work with mirrors and lamps or with bulbs below 20 watt.

So if you want to have good results also in high magnification (usually x1000 is enough), there is no way to invest a certain amount of money. For a new microscope that starts at appr. 500 Euro. For this money you should expect a heavy standplate, a binocular tubus, a working table which is moveable in both directions, and a set of semiplain objectives x4, x10, x40 and x100 (oil) with the numerical apertures as told above (0.65 for x40 and 1.25 for x100).
Of course you can spend 5000 Euro, but in the area of 500 to 700 Euro you get a nice microscope which you will be satisfied with for many years, I'm sure. I sell microscopes since some years and have by that and also by my courses (also microscopy courses) some experience on how amateur macologist work and can say, that 90% are very satisfied with a microscope of 500-700 Euro and the rest of 10%, which one day will buy a microscope for several 1000 Euros, unanimousely agree that it was good to buy a "cheap" one first to see how one likes microscoping . And those microscopes have even used a quite good retail value, so that you get the half of your money back when you want to sell it 10 years later.

best regards,
Andreas

[patrick25]

thanks guys.

I'll def give that a go with some bisporus. So far i've been taking spore prints on slides with whatever i can find at this time of year. It's been velvet shanks and manyzone, mainly. The spore prints come out nicely and I seem to get some focus but can't make out any spores. I've got some button mushrooms in the fridge that are on the turn! I'll give 'em a go tonight! watch this space. . . . . .