Powder Microscopy Lessons

Powder Microscopy

Pharmacognostic Powder Analysis

Identify crude drug powders using characteristic microscopic markers — trichomes, crystals, starch grains, fibres, and tracheids.

Take Spot Test All Categories

Lessons

Easy

Medium

Hard

8 lessons Go to Spot Test

Easy

Leaf

Senna Leaf Powder

Paracytic stomata, unicellular warty trichomes, and rosette crystals of calcium oxalate — hallmark of this anthraquinone laxative.

Clove Powder (Syzygium aromaticum)

Fibres, vessels, brown pigmented cells, spherical pollen grains, and oil glands filled with volatile oil.

Ginger Rhizome Powder (Zingiber officinale)

Large oval starch grains with eccentric hilum, yellowish oleoresin cells, and thin-walled parenchyma with cork fragments.

Turmeric Rhizome Powder (Curcuma longa)

Yellow parenchyma cells packed with starch, large oil globules, thin-walled cork cells — bright yellow colouring from curcuminoids.

Nux Vomica Seed Powder (Strychnos)

Stone cells in groups, lignified trichomes with thick walls, endosperm cells containing aleurone and fixed oil — strychnine alkaloids.

Digitalis Leaf Powder (Digitalis purpurea)

Anomocytic stomata, non-glandular trichomes, prismatic calcium oxalate crystals in mesophyll cells — cardiac glycoside source.

Cascara Sagrada Bark Powder

Starch granules, cork cells, calcium oxalate crystals with crystal sheath fibres, and reddish-brown pigmented cells.

Belladonna Root Powder (Atropa)

Abundant simple starch grains, micro sand crystals, vessels with bordered pits, and parenchyma cells — atropine-bearing drug.

9 min

Open

Ready to be tested?

Take the Powder Microscopy Spot Test — shuffled slides, point-writing questions, and instant scoring.

Start Spot Test