Revealed!

Well, we had success with the borrowed microscope! What you can see here are a few stomata (singular is stoma) from the lower surface of an ivy leaf. They are the little doughnut shapes scattered among the other cells. I made a mistake yesterday in saying that these little pores were on the upper surface of most plants - not true! They are on lower surface. Only leaves on water like water lilies have stomata on upper surface.

So much fun was had by the nerdy botanist (me) and I’ve almost convinced the little z (my pupil) of the wonder of leaf structure.

The stomata take in carbon dioxide during daylight hours to use in photosynthesis, releasing oxygen as a by-product for us aerobic organisms! At nighttime photosynthesis stops, so this is when plants need to take in oxygen from the environment for their own respiration.

I love biology!