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The ability to make free hand sections will allow you to quickly analyze plant organs
without resorting to laborious procedures. A tremendous amount of
information can be derived from hand sections. These do not need to be extremely
thin to be of use. Hand sections do not need to be complete or uniformly thin to be
useful. Your initial attempts at hand sectioning will probably be frustrating, however, you will quickly become proficient. Hand sections also provide 3-D
information which is not available with most commercial slides. |
Instructions (Right-Handed) 1] Place a Band-Aid on the thumb of your left hand. 2] Place another Band-Aid on the end of your index finger. 3] Grasp the plant structure between your thumb and forefinger so that the top of the specimen extends above the level of your thumb & forefinger. 4] Dip the busisness end of the specimen in water so that it is wet! 5] Take a teflon-coated single-edge razor blade in your right hand. Be sure that the cutting edge is wet. 6] Rest the blade on your forefinger and use a slicing motion to cut a thick section from the top of the specimen. This should give you a fresh transverse surface to section. You should try to direct the slicing away from your thumb. This avoids injury! However, I often slice towards my thumb. Hard samples are particularly dangerous because you need to apply a lot of force to the specimen. This can lead to a sudden powerful slice that can cut you deeply. Always slice away from your thumb when you section hard materials. 7] Raise the specimen slightly by manipulating it with your fingers and repeat the slicing motion RAPIDLY once you get a feel for this. 8] Thin sections can often be obtained by pressing the blade down on your forefinger and then slicing through the specimen several times. 9] After several sections have accumulated on the blade, float them off in a Petri dish of water. 10] Keep on slicing until you have some thin sections.
These will appear translucent
when seen against the dark
background of your lab bench. In most cases, the sections will have thin and
thick 11] Sections can be removed with forceps or spatulas and placed in a drop of water or stained on a microscope slide. 12] It is IMPORTANT to view unstained sections prior to staining.
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