Hello,

I went back and looked at other apples. I am sure that what I asked
about is not theremainder of the flower parts. I recognized these. I
am now sure that what I observed was a fungus or other infestation.
It was very slight but I saw it at both the stem and flower ends. At
the flower end the unknown material wa outside of the flower parts and
onto the skin of the apple.

Does this help in further identification. The round bodies were
sherical (not oblong), bright red and irregularly spaced. The red
objects were surrounded by a white filamentous material.

Aaron

On Thu, 04 Nov 2004 21:37:54 GMT, Sean Houtman
wrote:

Aaron wrote in
news
I don;t think this is part of the original plant. Upon further
observation it seems to be a fungus of some sort.

Anyone with further ideas.

Aaron

On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 09:28:50 -0600, Monique Reed
wrote:

Did you perhaps have the remains of the anthers?

M. Reed

Aaron wrote:

Tonight I happened to observe a fresh Macintosh apple under a
stereomicroscope looking for any strange wild life. In the area
of the flower and the stem depressions there were many small
bright red hemispherical bodies approx 0.25 millimeter in size.
The bodies did not move.

Here is a picture of the stem showing them. .

http://home.comcast.net/~nghy/mywebp...st/apple02.jpg

Does anyone recognize what I was observing?

Thanks
Aaron
.


Based on the magnification, they probably aren't the remains of the
anthers, but do look like pollen grains. The anthers on the Fuji
apple in my refrigerator are much larger than those items (in
relation to the stigma), and seem to reliably stay attached to the
filament.
Compare the structure as you can see it with this image
http://www.cci.ca.gov/Reference/Pollen/crabapol.jpg

Sean