ON EAPHIDES. 
573 
Independently of the interest of raphides in abstract botanical 
science^ it may be added that I have found the characters 
which they afford useful in little embarrassments of the garden. 
Thus it proved at once easy and convenient,, as well as novel 
and interesting^ to pick out,, simply by the raphidian cha- 
racter, seedlings of the exotic Onagrmece, now so commonly 
cultivated and admired, from seedlings of other orders ; and 
seedlings of Mesemhryacecey which had also been sown 
in pots, and got confused with other pots of young Grassu- 
laceoe- — both orders of succulent flowering plants — were as 
surely and quickly distinguished in like manner. This kind 
of practical diagnosis also proved equally good in plants at 
every period of their existence, and even shapeless fragments 
of their dead or rotting stems were thus distinguishable. A 
reserve bed, in which had been planted, and intended for 
removal when required, a Willow-herb, various Evening Prim- 
roses, Phloxes, Campions, and Rockets, had got into trouble- 
some confusion, when nothing was easier than to discern all 
the Onagracece by the profusion of raphides in the roots and 
subterranean buds, before growth had revived in the winter 
and early spring. Only there was a tough creeping root or 
underground stem with its buds, certainly neither a Willow- 
herb nor Evening Primrose. What this could be was a puzzle ; 
and so it was put into a pot Tor future observations, where 
in due time it became a flne specimen of Woodruff, a plant 
belonging to the raphis-bearing order Galiacece. Would 
any other diagnostic character, yet used in our botanical 
systems, have been available in such cases ? 
There are,^"* says Professor Lindley,* principles which 
experience tells us the systematist must keep in view, and most 
especially that of regarding of importance whatever appears 
to be constant in its nature among nearly allied species ; that 
nothing which is thus constant can be considered unimportant, 
for everything constant is dependent upon, or connected with, 
some essential function ; and, therefore, all constant characters, 
of whatever nature, require to be taken into account in classi- 
fying plants according to their natural affinities.'’^ Now, when 
plainly seeing the truth of these remarks, how can we regu- 
larly find such beautiful objects as raphides and their delicate 
organic cells in nearly allied species of one order of plants, 
and an equally regular absence of the same objects from the 
species of other and neighbouring orders, without clearly 
perceiving also that we have thus realized a character of 
which that illustrious botanist had so far sketched the 
foreshadow, though no systematist has yet grasped its sub- 
* “ The Vegetable Kingdom,” 8vo., pp. xxvii. — xxviii. 
VOL. IV. NO. XVII. 2 Q 
