56 Prof. G. Gulliver on Raphides. 



Mesembryese, which had been sown in pots and got confused 

 with other pots containing seedlings of exotic Crassulacese, were 

 all as easily and quickly distinguished by the same character. 

 The raphides in all these instances, though smaller than in 

 adult plants of the same species, were very plainly seen collected 

 into bundles in the seed-leaves and infant stems and plumules. 

 And the practical application of the raphidian diagnosis may be 

 equally simple and sure in old plants at every period of their 

 existence ; for, besides the evidence formerly given, it was found 

 particularly serviceable in the absence of any other botanical 

 character. Thus in a reserve bed containing several species or 

 varieties of (Enothera, and many Phloxes, Campions, Rockets, 

 and other plants, intended for removal when required, all the 

 Onagracese were readily identified by the abundance of raphides 

 in their roots and subterranean leaf-buds, before growth had 

 revived, in the early spring. But there was a tough creeping 

 root with stem-buds, certainly not an (Enothera, and yet abound- 

 ing in raphides. What could this be ? As we were here puzzled, 

 it was put into a pot for further observations, and soon became 

 a good specimen of Asperula odorata, a plant of the raphis- 

 bearing order Galiacese. 



Finally, as to the opinion of Link and E. Quekett that ra- 

 phides in plants are, like calculi in animals, "nothing more 

 than accidental deposits," the sum of my experience, on the 

 contrary, is that they are really such an intrinsic effect of the 

 plant-life, from the cradle to the grave, of the species in which they 

 abound, as to be quite as fundamentally and universally present 

 therein as any other speciality or single diagnostic whatever, 

 and moreover surely expository of an essential part of the very 

 nature of those species. And, although, on a subject so novel 

 and extensive, the results obtained by a single observer can only 

 be oflfered provisionally, it appears to me that the present prac- 

 tical applications are sufficient to prove the importance of raphides 

 as natural characters ; that their precise value in this point of 

 view requires further and very extended researches, more espe- 

 cially as regards the flora of the world ; and that, so far as con- 

 cerns the class Dicotyledones of the British Flora, the orders 

 Balsaminacese, Onagracese, and Galiacese are eminently entitled 

 to be characterized as raphis-bearing plants. 



Edenbridge, May 30, 1864. 



[To be continued.] 



