hand lens

The rarest was the minuscule rinodina isidioides - its tiny structures, when seen through a hand lens, resemble its common name, skeletal fingers.

“We needed to lay on our bellies with a hand lens to observe the plant,” Guilliams said in an email.

This is where that hand lens is useful again, to distinguish between the two.

A 10x-magnifying hand lens may be required to confirm the identification of smaller arthropods, like the two-spotted spider mite that flourishes in hot, dry conditions, because each adult is maybe a 50th of an inch long.

No hand lens is required to diagnose anthracnose, or the most common abiotic disorders.