LEMNACEZ. Al 
given to the microscopist, andthe friend pointed out a part which he called the scales 
as the portion at first put under the microscope. These turned out to be no part of 
the dodder, but the small withered leaves of another plant on which it had become 
entwined, probably Sherardia, and belonging to the raphis-bearing order Glaliacec. 
Professor Gulliver tells us how he has grown from seed, in one pot of mould, plants 
known as raphidian and exraphidian, and has been able to pick out each merely by 
this character as soon as the seed leaves were well grown. “ But nature,” he says, 
“requires much further questioning as to the constancy of raphides and their cells, 
their significance and form, and the conditions under which they may or may not be 
produced or checked, or modified in quantity or quality. A multiplication of such en- 
quiries would be easy and desirable in different localities, and a pleasant and instructive 
addition to rural amusements.” Professor Gulliver concludes his exhaustive paper by 
remarking that above half the British monocotyledons appear to be devoid of raphides, 
and he says, “In truth, how far the raphidian character may prove useful in the 
revision many of the orders of plants seem to require, remains to be decided, after a 
_ careful extension and correction of these observations, especially as regards the ‘ Flora 
of the World,’ by judicious enquirers, who may have the requisite materials at their 
command, and the will to use them, for the elucidation of the question of the value of 
raphides and their cells, as natural characters in systematic botany. Meanwhile, it is 
hoped that the present observations may induce some of our countrymen to study the 
_ subject in their own flora.” 
Dr. Lankester remarks that the biography of our British plants has yet to be 
written, microscope in hand, and it is not till the minute details of the cell-life of each 
plant have been recorded that we shall be in a position to arrive at the laws which 
_ govern the life of the vegetable kingdom. And it may be added that, until due atten- 
tion has been paid to this important subject, we shall never be able to comprehend 
and realise all the mysterious plans and specifications by which Nature has marked, 
for our instruction, her own affinities and contrasts, among allied groups of the 
vegetable kingdom. 
Section I].—EU-LEMNA. 
Fronds floating, herbaceous, not tailed, each giving rise to a single 
root-fibre, and furnished with naked baso-lateral clefts, from which 
young fronds are produced, which remain sessile and attached only 
for a short time to the parent frond; cells of the epidermis bounded 
by sinuous lines. Flowers from a cleft in the margin of the frond. 
Ovary containing a single semianatropous ovule. Fruit 1-seeded, in- 
' dehiscent. 
SPECIES IL—-LEMNA MINOR. Lim. 
| Prats MCCCXCV. 
| Reich. Ic. Fl. Germ. et Helv. Vol. VII. Tab. XIV. Fig. 15. 
| Billot, F). Gall. et Germ. Exsicc. No. 2939. 
Fronds floating, opaque, rather thick, flat on both surfaces, oval- 
obovate or suborbicular, entire, not tailed, subapiculate, the young 
fronds sessile; each frond giving rise to a single root-fibre, the under- 
surface not spongy. 
