What are the red objects in privet leaf cells?
A sixth form student looking at Ligustrum TS leaf saw something odd in some of the upper epidermal cells, but not all of them. The palisade layer beneath showed the nuclei clearly, they had been stained red. We could also see nuclei in some of the epidermal cells but in addition, and looking quite different, were masses of circular, deep red bodies. The nearest thing I can liken them to is clumped red blood cells!! John Hewitson reported:- I have had a look at these. I could only find them in Ligustrum (Privet) upper epidermis. The bodies were not present in the lower epidermal cells. They were present in virtually ALL the upper epidermal cytoplasm in the slide I looked at (stain not stated on the slide). They were almost always spherical. They were of variable size – most were about 1/6th diameter of nucleus but some up to 1/2 diameter of nucleus. They were darkly stained red – probably more densely stained than the nucleus itself. Chloroplasts (in palisade) were mottled red, but the
