On the Importance of Rapuipes as NaturaL CHARACTERS 
in Botany. By Grorce Guiuiver, Esq., F.R.S. . 
Ir seems amazing that the importance of raphides in vege- ~ 
table economy, and their great value as natural characters in 
systematic botany, should have received so little attention. 
Probably the chief reasons for this neglect are, that these 
beautiful crystals have been commonly regarded simply as 
curiosities, rather accidental than essential, and that sphz- 
raphides and other forms have been too often confounded 
with raphides. Hence, indeed, has arisen such confusion 
that we frequently hear them alluded to merely as micro- 
scopic marvels and irregular products; and the character of 
raphis-bearing, which I have assigned to such orders as Bal- 
saminacez, Rubiacez, and Onagracez, regarded as worthless. 
But if we restrict the term raphides, as proposed and defined 
etymologically in one of my former papers (‘ Ann. Nat. 
Hist.’ for Sep. 1863), taking care to distinguish raphides 
from spheraphides, that objection will cease altogether, and 
the value of raphides, as natural characters, become at once 
evident. Among British plants, it will be immediately seen 
what very different things the sphzraphides of Lythracez 
and Haloragacee are from the raphides of the intervening 
order, Onagraceze; and that, though Ovalis Acetosella is not 
a raphidiferous plant, it abounds in spheraphides. Num- 
berless examples of the same kind might be cited. 
I have been led to these remarks by Dr. Lankester’s valu- 
able paper in the last number of the ‘ Quarterly Journal of 
Microscopical Science,’ and most cordially agree with the 
following remarks in that paper:—“ The biography of our 
indigenous plants has yet to be written, microscope im hand, 
and it is not till the minute details of the cell-life of each 
plant has been recorded that we shall be in a position to 
arrive at the laws which govern the life of the vegetable king- 
dom.”” Now, as structure and function lie at the root of the 
best botanical classification, it is to be hoped that Dr. Lan- 
kester’s hint will not be disregarded by the excellent editors 
of the new edition of ‘English Botany,’ so that some of the 
spare surface of the plates of that great national work may 
be employed to render them not less equal to the present 
state of science than they were to that science in the time of 
Sir James Edward Smith. To this end, no doubt, careful 
attention must be given to such characters as those afforded 
by the raphides, and by the forms, contents, and intimate 
structure of the pollen, hairs, and tissue-cells ; as well as by the 
