Mushroom Gill Plates — Spore Release Structure
81.33 $
A fly agaric mushroom gill cross-section photographed at 4:1 macro — the parallel gill plates showing the basidia on which spores are formed and the spore-bearing surface texture visible in incident sidelight.
Description
Mushroom gill photography at macro scale reveals the spore production architecture of agaric fungi — the gill plates radiate from the stipe outward to the cap margin, their surfaces covered with basidia (the spore-bearing cells) that each produce four basidiospores on short projections (sterigmata). At 4:1 macro reproduction, the gill surface texture — the aggregated basidia creating a granular surface appearance — is visible as a fine texture on the gill faces, the individual basidia approximately 0.025mm in diameter and just at the resolution limit of the optical macro setup. This image captures a fresh cross-section through an Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) gill showing the parallel gill plates in an oblique view — the gill edges visible from the side and the gill faces visible from the front simultaneously. The white gill tissue of the fly agaric contrasts with the red-and-white spotted cap visible at the image edge.
