4 * GULLIVER, ON RAPHIDES. 
tity of their raphides. The Bur-reed and Water Plantain 
grow with their roots close together in a neighbouring ditch, 
and yet I find the former plant regularly abounding in 
raphides, while the latter plant is as surely destitute of 
them. 
To turn from nature’s own experiments to artificial trials : 
I have often had growing, from their seeds onwards, in one 
pot of mould, a raphidian and an exraphidian plant, when 
both of them preserved these distinctive characters as well as 
in the wild state. In short, I know of no means by which 
a raphidian plant can be grown in health, if at all, so as to 
extinguish this character, nor by which a plant regularly 
devoid of raphides can be made to produce them. If we 
sprinkle over the surface of a pan of soil seeds of a Willow 
Herb and Loosestrife, plants not far apart in our Flora, 
every one of the former species may be easily picked out, 
merely by the raphidian character, as soon as the seed-leaves 
are well grown. But nature, no doubt, 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 either in quantity or quality. A multiplication of 
such inquiries would be easy and desirable in different 
localities, and a pleasant and instructive addition to rural 
amusements. 
Many more experiments than are here mentioned have I 
made to the same effect, especially on seedlings of different 
orders, and seldom without the questions occurring to my 
mind—- What other single character, heretofore used in 
systematic botany, would serve for the diagnosis between 
these infant plants; or, during the winter months, by mere 
fragments of the roots and underground buds, between old 
plants of the same kind and others with which they are 
liable to be confounded? How can a character invariably 
present in the seed-leaves, and thenceforth throughout the 
frame, from the cradle to the grave, be otherwise than a 
natural result of an important and intrinsic function of that 
plant? And how can a phenomenon thus constant in the 
cellular tissue be without a certain share of the value belong- 
ing to this most fundamental or elementary organ of the 
vegetable kingdom? Moreover, as no botanist is likely, in 
the present day, to underrate the importance of this tissue, 
surely its structure and functions, when at all characteristic, 
ought to form a part of the history of every plant, not- 
withstanding the present neglect thereof throughout the 
descriptions of allied orders, and their subdivisions, even 
