20 ENGLISH BOTA?TY, 



" 3. Anthericew.. Perhaps without raphide3, as I could not find tliem in a dried 



bit of Slmeihis ; while in both plants of 



" 4. Hemcrocallidea:, raphides arc abundant. 



" Colchicacece. — Excepting a few minute raphis-like objects in the root-fibres, the 

 British plants of this order are quite without raphides. The sphroraphid-tissuo 

 occurs in Tofieldia ; and among the foreign plants Veratrum presents beautiful 

 examples of this tissue, and abounds also in rapliides. 



" Eriocmdacece. — I could find no raphides in dried leaves of Eriocaulon septangulare. 



" JuncacBOB. — In our indigenous species of Lzizida and Juncus I have in vain searched 

 for raphides. A few small raphides, or objects resembling them, occur in the leaves 

 of Narthechim. 



" Alismacece. — Raphides are wanting in our native species, as well as in the few 

 foreign ones that I have examined. 



" Aracem. — Rapliides abound in Arum, but are wanting in Acorws. All the exotic 

 Araceai that I have examined are raphis-beavers, and so are all the orders of Professor 

 Lindley's Aral Alliance. As to Acorns, it is placed by him in the Juncal Alliance of 

 his ' Vegetable Kingdom,' and as the type of the distinct order Acoraeem, between 

 Juncacece and Jancaginacece, among our native plants in his ' School Botany.' And 

 as I have found these last two orders, like Acorus, deficient in raphides, an additional 

 reason appears for separating this genus from an order in no species of which have 

 raphides yet been found wanting. I have, however, discovered a few small raphides 

 like those of Narthecium in the the exotic Gijmnostachjs. 



" Lemnacece. — Rapliides occur in all our plants, more abundantly in L. minor and 

 i. trisrdea than in L. gihha and L. jwli/rrJdza, and they are very plentiful, with sphse- 

 raphides in the tropical Fistia Siratiotes. 



" Potamogetonaceo'., Naiadacecc, Cyperacew, Grandnacece, and Crijptogamia, Budu- 

 losce. — In none of these plants, which include and form so large a portion of the 

 'Manual of British Botany,' have I yet found raphides." 



Professor Gulliver claims for tho raphides an important character in plants. He 

 thinks that as they invariably are found in one species and not in another, they may 

 fairly be held as specific distinctions, and he says, " I believe that a fair examination 

 will prove that raphides may give a diagnosis at once as fundamental and universal, 

 and as simple as truly natural, between plants of some different and proximate 

 orders as any one of the secondary characters heretofore used for this purpose in 

 Bystematic botany. That raphides are a true exponent of an essential function of the 

 ceU-life is shown by their constancy in certain plants ; bearing in mind, too, that the 

 question is not merely one of such saline crystals as have ever yet been made by tho 

 act of the chemist. An excellent observer, Mr. Edwin Quekett, thought he formed 

 them artificially. But John Quekett, Payen, and others came to the conclusion that 

 raphides either have an organic basis or pellicle ; and certain it is that they commonly 

 occur in bundles, within a living and beautiful cell, the whole forming an organism as 

 inimitable by mere chemistry as a spore or a grain of pollen. Wo must attach, 

 therefore, a far higher meaning to raphides than would be implied only by the term 

 crystals." Professor Gulliver tells us that an amusing and not uninstructive excep- 

 tion among plants was lately brought under his notice. A friend taking a fragment 

 from a plant in his collecting-box, put it under the microscope, and told him to look 

 and say fairly what he saw. He did so — there were plainly many raphides. He 

 then learned that the plant was a dodder, in which no raphides had ever before been 

 funnd, nor in any of the genus. Accordingly, some flowers and bits of its stem were 

 a'^'ain carefully examined, but no rai)hides could be detected. The plant was at last 



