Fungi
Click on the thumbnails below to enlarge images.
Fungal spore sac
Spore sac of a fungus. The sacs tend to burst open as soon as they are exposed to moisture, so the only way to visualise them is to use cryo-SEM.
Image courtesy of Miranda Waldron at the Electron Microscope Unit at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Fracture through gill of cultivated mushroom (Agaricus bisporus)
Considerable information about the surface and internal structure of Basidiomycetes can be obtained from frozen specimens. Each basidium projecting from the surface of the gill has two sterigmata, which bear a basidiospore each (marked by arrow).
Bar: 10um.
Plum rust fungus
Image shows the clusters of uredospores of the plum rust fungus Tranzschelia discolor.
In the inset, the wall of the spore can be seen to be highly sculptured and is described as echinulate. The frozen hydrated specimen shows no signs of distortion or collapse.
Bar: 25um (inset: 5um)
Baker’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae)
Images taken using PP2000T attached to an FEI XL30 ESEM FEG. The specimen was rapidly frozen in nitrogen slush, fractured and coated with 4nm of gold/palladium (Au/Pd).
Mycorrhiza (plant root fungi)
In a mycorrhizal association, the fungus colonizes the host plants' roots, either intracellularly or extracellularly . They are an important component of soil life and soil chemistry.
Specimens prepared using a Quorum PP2000 fitted to an FEI Quanta 200 SEM. Images courtesy of Liverpool John Moores University, UK.