Staining phloem

[Bob Vickery]

Magaly Rincon-Zachary wrote:

>Does anybody know of an easy staining procedure to visualize sieve tube
>members in fresh tissue?
>
>Thank you very much.
>
>Magaly



There is a stain that stains callose a bright blue.  From memory, which may be wrong, the recipe is 0.1% (or was it 0.01% ?) aniline blue in a bicarbonate buffer at pH 8.  The aniline blue turns to brown over a couple of days, so the solution should be made up shortly before use from a concentrated solution of aniline blue in ethanol.

Cheers

Bob Vickery
vickery at mpx.com.au