著者
Fuminori Komai Kanako Okada Yuko Inoue Mitsunori Yada Osamu Tanaka Susumu Kuwabata
出版者
園芸学会
雑誌
Journal of the Japanese Society for Horticultural Science (ISSN:18823351)
巻号頁・発行日
pp.MI-008, (Released:2014-09-23)
被引用文献数
1 5

Mature pollen grains of Lilium cultivar, with their germ pores folded in upon themselves, were observed under a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The conventional pretreatment process requires aldehyde fixation, dehydration, drying and metal sputtering for SEM observation. These complicated and laborious procedures can considerably alter the morphology of pollen grains. In order to omit this conventional pretreatment process, we established a novel technique utilizing an ionic liquid (IL) that is composed solely of ions, namely, a liquid salt that can remain in a molten state even at room temperature. IL-treated pollen grains could be observed under vacuum conditions without artifacts, and furthermore, a satisfactory SEM image could visualize pollen grains in a wet state. The possible direction of future studies on ionic liquids in the SEM field is also discussed.