Abstract:

In order to establish a simple， safe and rapid paraffin sectioning method to reduce the use of poisonous agent xylene in experimental process，the leaf and fruit of four periods of Ziziphus jujuba ‘Lingwu Changzao’were used as materials， and the anatomic features were observed by an improved low melting point polyester wax（Steedman’s wax） sectioning technique， and a set of feasible methods for paraffin sectioning preparation of plant tissues were established by improving embedding reagent， omitting the xylene transparence step， shortening the experimental processes， and compared it with conventional paraffin sectioning technique， it provided a new method for studying the plant tissues structures characteristics. The results indicated that the morphological structures of the leaf and fruit were complete and the staining was clear in paraffin sectioning obtained by the improved low melting point polyester wax（Steedman’s wax） sectioning method， the experimental procedures were not only simplified and the whole experimental time had been shortened， but also the quality of slices obtained using the improved sectioning technique was same as the conventional paraffin sectioning， and the experimental procedures were optimized and the use of toxic reagents such as xylene was avoided and experimental time was saved， and the efficiency of plant paraffin making was improved， it would be worthy of being used in more plant morphological anatomy research.

Key words: Ziziphus jujuba, Steedman’s wax, paraffin sectioning technique, anatomy structure