GULLIVER, ON RAPHIDES. 9 
found raphides in any one of them. Nor have my exami- 
nations of Alisma and Potamogeton been more successful ; 
and yet raphides are plentiful im all the orders standing in 
Professor Babington’s book between those orders of which 
Alisma and Potamogeton are the types. 
But, disregarding botanical arrangements, if we try at 
random such plants as may be met with in a short walk, we 
shall find that various species near in habit, however remote 
in alliance, and growing in the same place, with their leaves 
or roots more or less in contact, differ im nothing more con- 
stantly than in the presence or absenceof raphides. ‘Thus, 
we shall scarcely find raphides in trees or shrubs, though 
these plants, like numberless other Phanerogamia, abound 
either .in spheraphides or minute erystals, of which good 
examples may be seen in the petioles, leaves, or bark of 
Salix, Populus, Ulmus, Tilia, Lonicera, Vinca, &c.; and in 
the first pool may be found Lemna, Callitriche, Stratiotes, and 
Hottonia, of which Lemna only is a raphis-bearing plant. On 
the same hedge-bank we find various species of Onagraceee and 
Rubiacez, intermixed with as many species of Umbellifere, 
Leguminose, Labiatze, and Filices, and all the plants of the two 
former orders as certainly affording raphides as all the plants 
of the four latter orders will be devoid of raphides. More- 
over, of two plants, such as Galium palustre and Valeriana 
sambucifolia, growing together in the same damp place, the 
first will as regularly contain raphides as the second will be 
destitute of them. A collection of a very large number of 
similar examples has accumulated in my note-book, from 
which those now given are selected because they are among 
several of which the accuracy of the facts has been verified 
at various seasons and years and in diverse soils, and which 
facts first convinced me of the crudeness of the existing know- 
ledge of the subject. 
As to the real value of such facts, and the exceptions which 
may be found to weaken their significance, doubtless very 
extensive and elaborate researches are yet required. We may 
expect, especially as regards exotic botany, that they will be 
more or less modified, corrected, extended, and confirmed ; 
for we know that Nature, as if in abhorrence of our defini- 
tions of organic productions, is prone to furnish exceptions 
to the best and most comprehensive botanical and zoological 
characters. 
But surely the sum of the observations which we have 
already adduced is sufficient to prove that she has appomted 
certain plants as laboratories of a special compound in the 
peculiar form of raphides, while to other plants that function 
