Fuchsia

Another close-up view of a common thing today. The Fuchsia growing in our garden, was an obvious place to start - I told you I would be boring you all with more of this stuff - so I picked a flower and a leaf to take a look.
The first thing to mention is the Anther. Very clearly seen in a fuchsia flower as the stamens and stigma, project prominently below the petals. The anther is the pollen-producing, end part of the stamen. The fuchsia anther is held on the end of the filament to make up the whole stamen. Here, you can clearly see the anther and the pollen grains which are produced there. This image was 60 times magnified.

While looking at the under side of the fuchsia leaf, I spotted something moving. Too small to notice with the naked eye, it turned out to be a Two-spotted Spider Mite (Tetranychus urticae). I thought the little, white 'blobs' nearby were tiny drops of sap coming from the leaf, but after further investigation, they turn out to be the eggs of the Spider Mite. Here, again, magnified 60 times.

I was so impressed (I'm so easily pleased these days), that I thought I would take a short video of the mite feeding on the leaf sap, so here it is, this time magnified 200 times...