GULLIVER, ON RAPHIDES. 3 
' An amusing and not uninstructive asserted exception among 
our indigenous Exogens was lately brought to my notice by 
a friend. He took a fragment from a plant in his collecting- 
box, put it under the microscope, and told me to look and 
declare fairly what I saw. Plainly many small raphides. I 
then learned that the plant was a Dodder; and much to my 
surprise, as I had never found raphides in our plants of this 
genus. Accordingly some flowers and bits of its stem were 
carefully examined, and with much interest, when no raphides 
could be detected. The plant was at last given to me, when, 
in reply to my question as to the part in which he had 
shown them, he pointed to what he called the scales. And 
these turned out to be nothing more than small withered 
leaves, probably of Sherardia; certainly forming no part of 
the Dodder, and as surely belonging to a species of the raphis- 
bearing order Galiacex ! 
Even granting that the production of raphides, or other 
plant-crystals, as the spheraphides of Rhubarb, may be more 
or less modified, either by climate, soil, situation, or other 
conditions, numerous experiments have led me to the con- 
clusion that such agents or influence have so little power as 
not to affect the value of raphides as natural characters in 
the British Flora, if in any flora; and we shall soon see 
how constantly they are present in the plant at all stages of 
its growth. 
Of our native Onagrads I have for years, and at all seasons, 
been examining specimens from various localities, and ever 
with the very same result as.to the raphidian character of 
these plants ; and so, too, of the Daffodil, Blue-bell, and Star 
of Bethlehem. Raphidian and exraphidian plants variably 
preserve these respective characters in my garden. A Bed- 
straw and St. John’s-wort will always show this difference, 
though taken in the same clod from the hedge-row; so will the 
Black Bryony and its supporting Guelder-rose or Hawthorn, 
and their red berries ; while the next bank, whereon the wild 
Thyme grows, mingled with the Little Field-madder, will as 
surely never fail to give through them the same answer when- 
ever questioned. A profusion of Daffodils and Ramsons grow 
together, and often in very contact, under cover of a wild 
thicket, whence I have always obtained an abundance of 
raphides in these Daffodils, and none at all, in any single 
instance, from their companions the Ramsons ; this, too, after 
attentive examinations during several seasons and years, and 
in the face of my opinion, before entertained, of finding results 
to the contrary. Two or three species of Duckweed, touching 
each other in the same pool, will differ constantly in the quan- 
