458 Prof. G. Gulliver on Raphides and other Crystals in Plants. 



In short, while every plant that I have examined of the order 

 Nyctaginaceas constantly afforded raphides, all the plants exa- 

 mined of its neighbouring orders just mentioned were as regu- 

 larly found to be devoid of raphides. 



It is also noteworthy how we now see the trees and shrubs of 

 this exotic order (Nyctaginacese) abounding in raphides — a fact 

 of which no parallel has yet appeared to me in our native flora; 

 indeed I do not recollect a single example of true raphides in 

 any British tree or shrub, excepting Ruscus, a small shrubby 

 liliaceous plant (' Annals/ July 1864). 



Ficoidales. — In this alliance Prof. Lindley includes the orders 

 Basellacese, Mesembryacese, Tetragoniacese, and Scleranthacese. 

 True raphides swarmed in every species examined by me of 

 Mesembryanthemum ( f Annals/ Oct. 1864) ; and a late repetition 

 of many of those observations, with additional examinations of 

 at least eleven species (being all I could collect), have afforded the 

 same result. But I have never yet found raphides in any other 

 plant belonging to the Ficoidal Alliance, after having searched 

 for them in more than one species of each of the other three or- 

 ders. And when we took the orders Crassulacese, Ficoidese, and 

 Cactacese as they occur successively in Prof. Balfour's ' Manual/ 

 the result was similar — Mesembryanthemum still isolated, as a 

 great raphis-bearing group, from those neighbouring orders 

 (' Annals/ May 1864). Of Basellacese and Tetragoniacese, be- 

 sides the plants specified in former communications, I have 

 lately searched in vain for raphides in dried fragments of three 

 species of Trianthema, one of Anredera, and in the fresh leaves 

 and root-stock of Basella tuberosa — all plants affording sphaera- 

 phides, like those of Chenopodiaceaa. Finally, again by the kind 

 aid of Mr. W. H. Baxter I have examined dried portions of 

 Glinus Mollugo, G. lotoides, and Lewisia rediviva, in neither of 

 which could any raphides be found. 



Here, then, as far as these observations have yet extended, is 

 this vast genus Mesembryanthemum distinguished as a raphis- 

 bearing group from all its allies — a difference so remarkable and 

 natural as to make it very desirable that every one of these plants 

 should be examined in this respect by those botanists who may 

 have the means of extending and correcting the present results. 

 And it should be recollected that the sphseraphides which I have 

 found so abundantly in Tetragon iaceae are not to be confounded 

 with raphides, but are so like the sphseraphides of Chenopodiaceaa 

 as to make a curious resemblance in this respect between these 

 two orders, in addition to the affinity already noticed between 

 them by Prof. Lindley. 



Edenbridge, May 15, 1865. 



[To be continued.] 



