10 GULLIVER, ON RAPHIDES. 
is not assigned, though these may abound in different crystals, 
some of which may occur also with raphides in truly raphi- 
diferous plants. By chemists the raphides are said to be 
phosphate of lime, and no physiologist will doubt the import- 
ance of this salt in the vegetable and animal economy. ‘Thus 
we can easily understand the utility, and the cause of that 
utility, even of such abject and despised things as the com- 
mon Duckweed (‘ Ann. Nat. Hist.’ for May, 1861, and Janu- 
ary, 1863). Besides the instances now adduced with regard 
to raphis-bearing plants, we have elsewhere (‘ Ann. Nat. 
Hist.’ for November, 1863, fig. 1) proved that this function 
is a central one, second only in rank to the preservation of 
the species, and always, in some plants, at work from the 
ovule to the seed-leaves, thence, through the regular leaves and 
their modifications, to the parts of fructification ; in the root 
also, as in Dioscoreacez and Smilacee; this function indeed 
never ceasing during the vigorous life of the plant from the 
cradle to the grave; and, in short, being an essential and 
significant result of that life. So far, then, from considering 
raphides as minor or accidental formations, we must con- 
clude that they are the expression of a necessary, fundamen- 
tal, and constant phenomenon in the very nature of the plant- 
life in such cases as we have already noticed. And so really 
practical may this truth be, that, for gardening purposes, I 
have easily picked out, simply by the raphides, pots of seed- 
ling Onagracez which had got accidentally and inconveniently 
mixed with pots of other seedlings of the same age, and at 
that period of growth when no botanical character before in 
use would have been so readily sufficient for the diagnosis. 
In conclusion, it may be remarked that any truly accurate 
and comprehensive plant-history must include such import- 
ant products as the raphides; and whenever they may be 
available botanical characters, as we have shown that they 
often really are, where could any one exponent be found more 
constantly present and surely expressive of the nature and 
economy of the plant? And so we may hope that no history 
or arrangement, pretending to be a natural one, either of the 
whole or part of the vegetable kingdom, will henceforth ap- 
pear without a proper indication of those examples in which a 
very essential, significant, intrinsic, and characteristic function 
of the plant-life is the production of raphides. 
