[Histonet] aqueous counterstain for plant tissue

[katherine-walters <@t> uiowa.edu]

Dear Plant Gurus,

I'm doing an alkaline phosphatase immuno-stain on some plant tissues.  My 
chromogen-substrate solution is fast red, so I can't use any organic solvents 
or my signal will disappear.  

I came across malachite green as a plant counterstain, and actually have an old 
bottle, but I'm not sure how it works and my web search hasn't produced 
anything very useful so far.

Does anyone remember this stain and how it works, or have a better suggestion 
for a counterstain.  Hematoxylin isn't very useful due to the small size of 
plant nuclei, I imagine a cell wall stain would work best, but most seem to be 
alcoholic solutions.


Thanks a million for any help you can give me!

Kathy