Pine Pollen Grains

Cy3 HYQ Bandpass Emission (Medium Bandwidth Excitation) Green Set

Autofluorescence emission intensity from pine (Pinus taeda) pollen grains. Endogenous autofluorescence in plant tissues arises from a variety of biomolecules, including chlorophyll, carotene, and xanthophyll. In the green excitation region, chlorophyll has an absorption band with a low extinction coefficient, but still produces a detectable level of fluorescence at emission wavelengths of 550 nanometers and above (green, yellow, orange, and red). For the pine pollen grains illustrated above, note the presence of autofluorescence emission intensity in the orange and red spectral regions, which is strongly reminiscent of a darkfield image.