I've looked in a few books and cannot find a variant
of Johansen's safranine-light green (or -fast green FCF)
that involves picric acid. Is your technique something
other than the commonly used stain for sections of
plant tissue?  (The same combination of dyes has been
used for cytoplasmic organelles in sections of 
osmium-fixed animal material, but I don't think it
has a big following for that purpose these days.)
-- 
-------------------------
John A. Kiernan
Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology
The University of Western Ontario
London,   Canada   N6A 5C1
   kiernan@uwo.ca
   http://publish.uwo.ca/~jkiernan/
------------------------------------------
abishop@sfsu.edu wrote:
> 
> Has anyone out there ever used HCl as a substitute for Picric acid in a
> staining protocol such as Johansen's Safranin/Fast Green? If so what were
> the results? Thanks for reading this.
> 
> A. Bishop
> San Francisco State University
> 1600 Holloway Ave
> San Franicso, CA 94132