Word of the Week

The Word of the Week this week (awarded weekly on a week by week basis) is:

apiculus

being the part of a fungal spore which attaches to the sterigmata at the end of a basidium.

It's become apparent that my mycology, which is over 40 years old (and, if I'm being completely honest, wasn't one of the subjects I committed maximum attention to at the time), is coming back to me very slowly at my advanced age...

These spores are 8-10µm long, which means that the apiculi are sub-micron structures. I'm delighted to be able to achieve that level of resolution with the Apex Practitioner microscope. 


Clustered Bonnet, Mycena inclinata spores, wet mount, 800X magnification.