456 Prof. G. Gulliver on Raphides and other Crystals in Plants, 



directing one's attention to the peculiar conditions often pre- 

 sented in the lower animals by the multiplication and meta- 

 morphosis of individuals. Although I have sought carefully in 

 the group to which I have just been referring for alternations 

 between a sexual and an agamic generation, I have never met 

 with it. The number of zoanthodemata is only increased sexu- 

 ally. Blastogenesis or gemmation extends the zoanthodemata 

 or colonies by multiplying the number of inhabitants in each of 

 them; but these budded individuals are soon sexual, resemble 

 those from which they are derived, and assist in reproduction 

 by fecundation, without presenting any peculiarity except their 

 origin. 



It is constantly the case in the whole of this group that 

 fecundation takes place in the general cavity of the body of the 

 female, or even in the ovary, and that the female hatches her 

 ova after impregnation; thus she does not produce eggs, but, 

 by a true parturition, rejects by the mouth ciliated vermiform 

 embryos or larvae, which attach themselves after having for a 

 short time enjoyed complete freedom. 



L. — Observations on Raphides and other Crystals in Plants. 

 By George Gulliver, F.R.S. 



[Continued from p. 382.] 



DidyogencB. — At the end of the last communication, the 

 deficiency of raphides in the Cryptogamese Ductulosse was no- 

 ticed, as well as in Potamogetonacese, Naiadacese, Cyperacese, 

 and Graminese, which four orders conclude the class Monocoty- 

 ledones in the * Manual of British Botany ;' and I had before 

 shown how raphides constantly abound in the subdivision Dic- 

 tyogense, therein placed at the beginning of this class. 



Now the orders Coniferse and Hydrocharidacese, between which 

 is the position of Dictyogense in the lineal series of the natural 

 arrangement of that book, are as regularly devoid of raphides. Ex- 

 tending the inquiry from the flora of Britain to that of the world, 

 the facts, as far as my observations have yet gone, are to the same 

 eflfect. Thus the fifth class in Prof. Lindley's ' Vegetable King- 

 dom ' is formed by the Dictyogens, and placed lineally between 

 his Alismal Alliance and Gymnogens. But in no order of these 

 last two groups have I yet found raphides, though I have searched 

 some of the exotic as well as all but one of the indigenous spe- 

 cies; while every plant belonging to the Dictyogens, either 

 native or foreign, that has ever come under my examination was 

 constantly found abounding in raphides. 



Hence, besides the diagnostics already described by systematic 



