A Method of Affixing Separate Thick Sections from Materials Embedded in Paraffin

Abstract

Botanical studies often require thick histological sections (for embryology, pollen and spore arrangement in tetrads, etc.). Study of the original position of the generative cell in Angiosperms, for example (Huynh 1972), requires paraffin sections bearing entire pollen grains with a diameter of up to 80 μm. However, it is impossible to obtain ribbons with sections of such thickness. If the sections are affixed separately, they do not hold so strongly to slides as do those mounted as ribbons; this difficulty increases with thickness of section. in addition, affixing sections separately with the required order and spacing is tedious and difficult, demands a great deal of time, and even so, is not always successful. the simple method described here can remedy such inconveniences.