04 



ORGANOGRAPHY. 



BOOK I. 



4. Of Raphides. 



12 



13 



14 



Among the tissue, and according to Raspail exclusively in 

 the intercellular passages of plants, are found certain needle- 

 slmped transparent bodies, lying either singly or in bundles, 

 and called raphides. They were first discovered by Rafn, who 

 found them in the milky juice of Euphorbise; afterwards they 

 were met with by Jurine, in the leaves of Leucojimi vernum, 

 and elsewhere ; and they are now ^vell known to all vegetable 

 anatomists. If a common Hj^acinth is wounded, a consider- 

 able discharge of fluid takes place, and in this myriads of 

 slender raphides (fig. 14.) are found floating; or if the cuticle 

 of the leaf of Mirabilis Jalapa is lifted up, little whitish spots 

 are observable, which are composed of them; all these are 

 acicular in form, whence their name. But in the Cactus peru- 

 vianus (fig. 13.) they aie, according to Tuipin, found in the 

 inside of the bladders of cellular tissue, and, instead of being 

 needle-shaped, have the form of extremely minute conglomer- 

 ated crystals, which are rectangular prisms with tetraedral 

 summits, some with a square, others with an oblong base. 

 Crystals of a similar figure have been remarked by the same 

 observer in Rheum palmatum (fig. 12.); and their presence, 

 according to him, is sufficient to distinguish samples really 

 from China and Turkey, from those produced in Europe. 

 The former abound in these crystals, the latter have hardly 

 any. 



The account given by Raspail is something different from 

 this. He asserts that raphides are never found either in Cac- 

 tus or elsewhere in the inside of the bladders of cellular tissue, 



