'7 



53 



their allies. You are left to the recognized and orthodox 

 characters ; and as these, for ordinal purposes, are commonly 

 founded on the flowers and fruit, to the chance of finding 

 such parts present for your purpose ; while the fact of re- 

 markably natural characteristics in such cases being really 

 afforded by that inmost structure, to be noticed immediately, 

 never seems to have been dreamt of by the author of any 

 Flora or other systematic book, native or foreign. 



Let us turn then a little from such books to the book of 

 Nature — for she is ever true and delightful, and, as one of 

 her own poets sings, " Never did betray the heart that loved 

 her"— when we shall find that she has stamped a cell- 

 character on certain orders by which they may at any sea- 

 son, at any period of growth, even in the seed-leaves, and in 

 truth from the cradle to the grave of the species, be plainly 

 distinguished from the nearest allied orders. And this sim- 

 ply by remarkable cells abounding in raphides ; the 

 raphides being beautiful needle-like crystals, com- 

 posed either of phosphate or oxalate of lime ; yet not 

 mere crystals, as they form part and parcel of a delicate 

 organism — the raphis-cell. This cell will be 

 found so diffused throughout the frame of tlie plant that a 

 mere fragment of that plant will be sufficient for the diag- 

 nosis. Again, certain closely allied species in some lower 

 flowering plants may be distinguished in like manner ; and 

 several high Esogcns and some Endogens may bo known by 

 their pollen-grains, epidermoid and other cells, and certain 

 Ferns by the tissue-cells of their fronds and spore-cases. 

 Indeed, the extent, distinctness, and value of such truly 

 natural characters are probably far greater than we suppose ; 

 and, as the subject is new, it seems proper to specify the 

 means by which it was investigated. 



Adopting, then. Lord Bacon's recommendation to re- 

 view our knowledge and transplant it into the minds of 

 others as it grew in our own, let us see how the, import- 

 ance of cell-characters as diagnostic of orders or species 

 became evident to mc. During many years I had been 



