Fountain of Cool... Stomatal Bands

As I've been a horticulture student for some time now, you'd think the excitement would have died down but alas, I'm still loving it.  From the first day, I was hooked.  Last December I shared my favorite plant from my Broadleaf Evergreen Identification class.  Now that it's winter quarter, I have embarked on Conifer Identification, a subject I originally thought would be fairly boring.  But of course, it never ceases to impress!  So now, I think I might have to periodically share some highlights and favorite plants as the learning journey continues.  To my dismay, I actually have more favorite plants this quarter as opposed to last quarter!

But before I introduce one, let's take a moment and get educated...

Most conifers have what is called stomatal banding.  It's typically found on the underside of needles. Here's a good example:

Eastern hemlock stomatal bands

You can see a few leaves turned over showing the green topside of the leaves.  Often these bands appear as thin white lines that follow the shape of the needle/awl.  Here's another version of stomatal bands:

Chamaecyparis obtusa

Now onto the good stuff.  Today, we were introduced to another conifer tree that seemed fairly ordinary - Thujopsis dolabrata or false Hiba cedar.  Here's what it looks like.

And then cuttings were passed around to the class (don't worry, the tree is still very much intact).  The topside of the branchlets were fairly normal looking, nothing to write home about.  This is a variegated cultivar so you can see a little yellow (variegation) in some of the needles.  

But when we turned the cuttings over, we found something truly cool...

 This is the stomatal bands on the underside, so very cool.

So that's it, just had to share my newest discovery.  I'll leave you with this ultra-cool photo some amazing photographer took (aka me).