Fig. 6. ESEM images of rosette leaves demonstrates that the majority of Columbia ecotype wild-type leaf trichomes have three branches (A). Mutant trichomes (B) show abnormal branch angles, twisted branches, and expanded inter-branch zones [e.g. see trichome labelled (i)]. Bars, 500 µm. The most prevalent aspect of the mutant trichome phenotype is an increased variation in branch angles. A histogram (C) divided into bins of 10 degrees from 0 to 240 shows that the majority of wild-type three-prong branches are separated by an angle of approximately 120°. Trichomes of mutant plants show a wider spread of angles with extremes of 23 and 220 degrees. The number of measurements was 90 for all lines and all trichomes were taken from the sixth rosette leaf at 16 DAG. Imaging of GFP:FABD2 in wild-type trichomes (D) and cap1 trichomes (E) aged between developmental stages 4 to 5 shows that F-actin in mutant trichomes accumulates within the core of expanding branches (E; bars, 20 µm).