Yen!

She/They 🏳️‍🌈. Immigrant. Botanist working on the conservation of threatened plants in Naarm (Melbourne) 🌱 Lots of microscopy, photography and art bits. No reposting. No AI. https://linktr.ee/BotanyByYen

[botanybyyen]

A bit about my macro photography: I use a dissecting microscope plus my phone camera! One photo can be made up of 5-15+ seperate shots at different focal lengths and focus-stacked in Affinity Photo to make them extra sharp. But yeah, all taken with a microscope and phone. 😄 🔬

[botanybyyen]

This weeks microscopy features Lunularia cruciata (Lunulariaceae). Lunularia is a monotypic genus, meaning L. cruciata is its only species. This thallose liverwort is pretty unmistakable due to its crescent-shaped gemmae cups, which look like little crescent moons (hence the name!). They definitely don't make the liverworts look like they have little faces.

It's widespread around the world but is introduced in Australia. Still, it's one of the most common liverworts you'll see in urban areas.

It reproduces almost entirely asexually through its gemmae, which are water-distributed. Sexual reproduction is quite rare in this species, so no photos of sporophytes this time around!

I do, however, have this series. First photo shows gemmae that have spashed off the thallose and onto dirt, where they'll slowly grow (second photo) into mini thallose liverworts. You can also see green tendrils of algae in the first photo, which are really common on moist soil.

And as a bonus, here's a springtail that sat very nicely for some photos.

[botanybyyen]

This weeks microscopy features Marchantia polymorpha (Marchantiaceae), a species of thallose liverwort! Called the ‘common liverwort’ this species is probably the most well known of thallose liverworts. It is found on every continent except Antarctica and is used as a model organism. It can often be a horticultural weed and is very commonly seen in potted plants at nurseries. Which is exactly where I picked up this specimen. I had bought tubestock of an Acacia specifically for the reproductive Marchantia it contained, not actually for the Acacia.

There’s a few features I wanted to share (and part of why I got soooo excited when I saw this plant).

First off, air pores! These are almost the equivalent of stomata in higher plants. Their function is in gas exchange and they are those pin-prick like features surrounded by a whitish circle.

Next, a gemmae cup! For Marchantia these cups are circular (as opposed to crescent-shaped like in Lunalaria). Gemmae cups house asexually-produced gemmae that disperse via water. You can just make out some of them in the centre here.

Now we have my two favourite photos from the whole shoot. These are archegoniophores, which contain the female sex organs. They're stalked and tall and just stunning. Let's look at their underside.

These are mature sporophytes on the underside of the archegoniophore. They're orange/yellow and actually look like mini flowers or something. You can just make out the feathery fine threads of spores on the first image there. They're gonna go off and make the next generation of Marchantia.

Lastly we have an antheridiophore. These contain the male sex organs. There was only one on the specimen I got but thankfully it worked out, it wasn't too old to get goof photos of.

Anyway, hope you've enjoyed this little Marchantia appreciation post. I loooooove liverworts and need to make time to photograph more of them.

[botanybyyen]

This weeks microscopy features another invert, the Golden Stag Beetle (Lamprima aurata)!

These beeltes are pretty widespread in Australia and can be found in dry sclerophyll forests of both the mainland and Tassie. They are large sexually dimorphic beetles that can be between 15-25mm long, with males usually bigger than females. This specimen is a female, which have shorter mandibles than males (who use them for battling rival males). Females are also more variable in colour than males (who are often golden-green). This is a blue morph female.

Okay, so mostly this is just a colour and texture appreciation post because come ON:

Ugh these beetles are absolutely gorgeous. Okay, now lets take a look from the side, where there's some gorgeous golden hairs:

Front leggies

Uuuugh so good. The colours on these guys are unreal. Also, I found this specimen disceased in my yard. It was the first time I've seen them here, and I REALLY hope she laid her eggs somewhere nearby before she passed. I wanna see more next year.

[botanybyyen]

This weeks microscopy features Grevillea australis (Proteaceae), aka the alpine grevillea! As the name suggests, this plant is native to alpine areas in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania (being the only Grevillea in Tassie). Not to be confused with Grevillea alpina (which is more widespread but more abundant at low altitude, names are weird and can be misleading).

These plants have very typical Proteaceae flowers (four tepals, pollen presenter) that are white-pale pink with brown hairs on the outside of the tepals and a pink-tipped pollen presenter. In this photo you can see one of those pollen presenters absolutely covered in pale yellow pollen (and you can actually make out a lil line of individual pollen grains right along the top of it).

Here's one of an opening flower.

And a closer look into this opening flower. You can see anthers and pollen grains in each tepal. If you look realllllly carefully you may be able to make out that the pollen is triangular. Grevillea and Hakea pollen are triangle shaped.

Like this! This isn't the same species (I took this four years ago, it's most likely from Grevillea jephcottii). They're fat little triangles. Oh, but you see the weird tendril of goo coming out of the central-most pollen grain? That's a pollen tube, it's how pollen fertilises an ovule to make a seed. 😁😁

Anyways, I’m a big fan of Proteaceae and it’s always a pleasure to photograph them. Proteacea are super super cool.

[botanybyyen]

This weeks microscopy is a little bit different than my usual botany posts! We're gonna have a bit of an insect appreciation post.

This is a species of sawfly (Hymenoptera) called Clarissa ruficollis (Pergidae, subfamily Euryinae). I loooooove insects so much, and I think it's really important to have basic insect ID skills in botany. Being able to identify insects to at least family is super useful since insects and plants are so deeply intertwined. They're deeply connected in an evolutionary arms race not only for pollination, but also for herbivory. The life cycles of so many insect species require plants! And so many plants require insects!

Okay, now back to this Clarissa. These images were taken to aid in the ID of the pinned specimen caught during a student field trip to the alpine area of Victoria. Some insect taxa can be really fiddly to ID. There's often very minute characters you have to see in order to get a proper identification, and more often there's only one or two experts on a given taxa. Such is the case here, and the academics who caught it needed to send photos to the expert who lives out of state. That's where I came in! Let's take a look at some of those photos, and I'll put what those images show (from an entomological viewpoint) under them.

"Wings infuscated with black nerves". In entomology, infuscated means there's a brown or smoky tinge to the wings.

"Mesonotum and back of head weakly punctured".

"Face strongly punctured, back of head less; malar space=pedicel length"

Also, see that weird rectangular thing on its eye? That's a butterfly or moth wing scale.

"Antennae 11-segmented; black body with red mesonotum, pleurae"

Now, when I took these photos I didn't know what characters to be looking for. I just know (from past experience) what areas could be important for identification. The characteristics in quotes were given to the photos by expert Paul Whitington. I've given him permission to use this photo series to aid in the identification of this species in the future. The whole series can be found on his website: https://southernforestlife.net/notes/2024/8/2/clarissa-species-identification Hope you all have enjoyed the slight deviation from my botanic photos. There will definitely be more invert series in the future. :)

[botanybyyen]

An idea I've had floating around in my head for a while 🙂‍↕️

Bogong and Bogan moths!

If you're not an Aussie, bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) are an endangered migratory species of moth that can fly over 1000km. They're a major food source of critically endangered mountain pygmy possums (Burramys parvus). Not really a good combo when a major food source for a critically endangered species becomes, itself, endangered.

On the flip side, a bogan is kind of the Aussie equivalent of a redneck who's very nationalist and rowdy. The VB on its wings stands for Victorian Bitters, a beer often associated with bogans.

In real life my brain often messes up and I'll call bogong moths bogan moths accidentally. 😬 Sorry, moths!

These stickers are available on my Etsy to ship within Australia. Link in bio! I don't currently ship internationally (unless you buy off redbubble but I still need to add this design there 😅).

[botanybyyen]

This weeks microscopy features Ranunculus victoriensis, aka the Victorian buttercup. This species is a Victorian endemic found on the Bogong High Plains, and is listed as Endangered. They have very typical buttercup flowers that are a bright and glossy yellow. They have numerous stamen arranged circularly around a head of numerous carpels.

And here's a closeup of those carpels. The tip of the stigma has a lot of texture to it!

And now the anthers, absolutely covered in pollen. Pollen of this species (maybe all Ranunculus, I'm not sure) is spherical and pretty smooth.

And a cheeky cross-section, so that you can see how each carpel is free from one another. :) Plus the big ovule inside that'll go on to become a seed!

[botanybyyen]

Okay! Let's get back into it!

This weeks microscopy features Hovea montana (Fabacaea)! These plants grow as small shrubs and can be found in NSW, Tas and in Victoria. They’re alpine plants and ocurr above 1200m in heathy and grassy areas. They have typical ‘pea’ flowers that visually are quite similar to the more common Hardenbergia violacaea (purple/blue with yellow on the inner standard petal)

A lot of the plant is covered in rusty-coloured, soft hairs (stems, underside of leaves, sepals, seed pods). It's quite a contrast to the glossy green topsides of their leaves.

But now to my favourite bit: the pollen! Typical pea plants like this guy have 10 stamen (male parts) arranged circularly around the carpel (female part). In this case, the stamen form a tubular sheath entirely around the carpel, with each seperating from each other just before the anthers. You can kind of see that here. Another thing you can see is that the anthers have dehisced their pollen into one big clump. This is typical, and makes it incredibly messy to dissect pea flowers. Pollen goes everywhere. I often have to clean it up with paintbrushes to get photos that aren't an absolute mess.

And to finish things off, here's an extra closeup of those anthers and pollen. :) Thanks for reading! Hope you like em.

[botanybyyen]

Do not provoke the flying murder ants (bull ant, Myrmecia pyriformis).

[botanybyyen]

Yikes March has been absolute chaos!

I submitted my first manuscript to be published, attended a week long online workshop, made and gave a 25 minute talk, and have been tearing into some genetic analyses for my Masters whilst building another 20 minute talk I need to give as a milestone. Its been very very busy.

I plan to get back into weekly microscopy posts in April, once I've recovered from March!

[botanybyyen]

This weeks microscopy features Grevillea barklyana (Proteaceae), aka the gully grevillea. Endemic to Victoria, this species is critically endangered (these flowers came from a horticultural plant). Its florets are quite large- almost too big to fully capture under my microscope. They also have a really neat little surprise I wanna share with you guys.....

When you get a close look at them you may notice their pollen is bright pink, not the yellow colour that we typically think of for pollen! Pink pollen! That's pretty dang cool, guys.

Also, if you're like "what part of the flower is this pollen on, this isn't an anther" you'd be right! Proteaceae has secondary pollen preseantion. Bascially, pollen dehisces from anthers onto the pollen presenter (tip of the style). So that photo above is the pollen dehisced onto the pollen presenter, waiting for a pollinator to come and grab it and carry it off to the next plant. The stigma will become receptive to pollen donation once its own pollen leaves. Anyway, back to pink pollen.

From my own dissections the pollen starts out as yellow and turns pink as the florets mature and open. This is a dissected unopened (immature) flower and the pollen is briiight yellow here. Here's a series kind of showing the colour change from bright yellow to pink:

I’ve been meaning to capture more species with a variety of pollen colours, so it was nice finding out we had this species on campus to look at!

[botanybyyen]

Teaching Fish microscopy.

Just thankful she waited till I was done with this photoshoot before she rubbed her face all over the microscope. 😅

[botanybyyen]

Guys look at this beefly (Bombyliini, likely Staurostichus) I saw at Wilson's Prom the other day. SO FLUFFY. 😭 😭 😭

[botanybyyen]

This weeks microscopy features Senna artemisioides ! This is a gorgeous yellow-flowered shrub that can grow up to 3m high. In Victoria it’s found around Melbourne and in the west/central of the state. It’s in the pea family (Fabaceae) subfamily Caesalpinioideae and does not have a typical pea-shaped flower (subfamily Faboidea). Instead it has 5 rounded petals of unequal size and a showy display of long brown anthers at its centre.

It is a buzz-pollinated plant (it has poricidal anthers), requiring bees to vibrate at a specific frequency to release its pollen. They kind of look like weird bananas (the tips remind me of sweet lil' ball python faces).

Here I've cut off the anther tips so you can see the pollen formation, the light coloured balls along the inner edges.

[botanybyyen]

Went out hunting for teddy bear bees (Amegilla albiceps) and struck gold! They were too busy to stay still for photos, but I managed to grab a few shots.

On mistletoe ❤️

[botanybyyen]

This weeks microscopy features Cryptandra tomentosa! This plant is in the Rhamnaceae family, with its genus name referring to its anthers being hidden by hood-shaped petals.

They grow to be small shrubs around 30cm high and can be found in sandy heaths in western Victoria. Unfortunetly, the specimen I had to photograph weren’t very fresh so this is a species I’ll need to come back to in the future! I think they’re super cool plants with their little hidden anthers.