hand lens

“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.

Occasionally, one of them would cradle it in one palm and bring a hand lens to it with the other, inspecting the carnivorous plant that was their bounty.