Have you tried with the Maule reaction or the Weisner test?
You can find quite some information about these tests here:
http://library.umaine.edu/MaineAES/TechnicalBulletin/tb53.pdf
Have you tried phloroglucinol and HCl? You have to use then in the same proportion e.g. three drops of Phloroglucinol and three drops of HCl, the tissue with lignin will stain bright red.
post-embedding staining of epoxy sections is difficult, most protocols do not work
standard staining is methylene blue + azure A mixed on a slide put on a hot plate, lignified walls are green, protein-rich parts are blue, and if the probe is OsO4-postfixed, tannin-like compounds are black
there is also a very nice staining with safranin, but it starts at probe dehydratation and does not work well with osmificated probes: add a few drops per vial of stock safranin while in etOH 70%, leave probes for a few days in closed vials, complete the protocol, additionally stain sections - and carefully - with VERY DILUTED methylene blue + azure A; lignified walls + phenolics in vacuoles are brightly red, everything else is blue or blue-green
the safranin idea is from: Baroni Fornasiero R, Bianchi A, Pinetti A. 1998. Anatomical and ultrastructural observations in Hypericum perforatum L. leaves. Journal of Herbs, Spices and Medicinal Plants 5: 21–33 and my results you can see in Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2010, 163, 70–86.
Good luck :-)
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