Australia's Science Forum

I tried to make some prepared slides of stomates using nail polish to peel the guard cells off a leaf.
This worked well as a wet mount but when the time came to fix the cover slip, the Depex mounting medium I used dissolved the nail polish and I ended up with no specimen!
Does anyone have an alternative that won't be dissolved by Depex?

It may be worth trying to use more nail polish to fix coverslip to slide. I have not tried it for this material but have for others. It is worth a try.

To fix nailpolish imprints of stomates onto slides I just use sticky tape (clear cellotape). This method also works for strands of nylon, cotton, hair and scales off butterflies, moths and pollen. Great for junior introductory slides where there tends to be more breakages. To capture specimens simply hold sticky tape and dab onto object then stick to slide.

Thanks Carole F & Beverly.
I'll give the extra nail polish a try.

Judy