Plants under the microscope feel like they open up another world

Under the microscope, these common vegetables and fruits all look completely different. Can you still recognize them?

Strawberry

This strawberry is a variety often grown in gardens. Every single "hair" is clearly visible. Each tiny dot is a strawberry fruit. And the juicy berry we eat is the part that swells from the strawberry's receptacle after pollination.

Broccoli

This photo of broccoli shows a cluster of immature flower buds. The tiny dots on it are stomata used for respiration.

Peach

The surface of a peach feels very soft, thanks to the thousands of tiny hairs in the photo. Most of these fine hairs are very short. In this photo, the stomata are stained red.

Mulberry

People have been cultivating mulberries since ancient times, possibly originating in China. This photo shows each individual small fruit. The hairy parts are the stigmas.

Chinese chives

This is a cross-section of a Chinese chive leaf. The sponge-like structure is the mesophyll. The leaf in this photo is actually only 1.2 mm thick.

Potato

This photo shows three sprouts emerging from the surface of a potato. The longest sprout is 4 mm long.

Glandular-stemmed raspberry

This plant is a close relative of blueberries and raspberries, growing in North China, South Korea and Japan. Interestingly, this plant, from top to bottom, including the sepals that support the fruit, is covered in a thick layer of fine hairs.

Cauliflower

What we eat as cauliflower is actually its immature flowers, which is the part shown in the photo.