Bursting into Life

A 2-day-old leaf of an Arabidopsis thaliana (Thale cress) plant, grown in total darkness, was imaged after its initial emergence. When a plant is ready to emerge from the soil, water is absorbed into the seed. This expands the seed and helps the young leaves to push through the soil toward the surface. Young leaves fight their way out of the seed, bursting through the seams, desperately chasing the source of light. Due to this initial expansion, what is left is a beautiful shimmering and fiery seed coat. This image was captured using a Zeiss deconvoluting microscope (Observer Z.1 Excite 120LED). UV, blue-green, and orange-red LEDs were directed at the live leaf for less than a second, fluorescence was captured, then data were merged to obtain the final image. Shown is the transition layer that contains pigments (green), the newly made premature cells (green-red), and nuclei (blue).