The Laser Scanning Microscope (LSM) provides a tool for studying morphology in a totally new way, in three dimensions, in various conformations and also in motion. Additionally, the LSM can further enhance visual comprehension by showing the inside and the outside of a cell at the same time. Small, optically transparent tissues are best for this type of exploration, and many investigators are beginning to use this as an important tool in their work. I am using spruce pollen to exploit this new technology, as the pollen grains are on the large side of the high-resolution limit. The size of the pollen grains I examined are around 60 microns, within the limits of the working distance on a high NA objective, but too big for traditional mounting techniques. The resulting high-resolution images generated by the Silicon Graphics, Inc. workstation (SGI) provide similar surface detail to the scanning electron microscope and much improved detail over a conventional fluorescence light microscope. The internal information is limited to the fluorescent stain used and the laser lines available on the LSM. The samples were stained with Acridine Orange and excited with a 488nm laser. The techniques used are quick and easy for pollen, as it can be collected fresh and stained or collected, fixed, then stained and mounted at a later date. The SGI helps to create 3-D models that are easy to understand and visually illustrate more information at once without using cartoons or the imagination. The information gleaned from LSM and SGI processed images combines high surface detail with clear internal information that is equivalent to more time consuming techniques thus speeding up information gathering on the morphology of pollen in a format amenable to presentation in the computer age.

Key words: 3D-reconstruction, LSM, Picea, pollen, SGI