576 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
and useful observations may be extended to tlie flowers^ fruit, 
and other parts. The red berries of the Black Bryony and Cuc- 
koopint may thus be instantly distinguished from those of the 
Bed Bryony and Guelder-rose. So, too, of fresh barks and 
roots, and numerous officinal drugs and vegetables. Examples 
of this kind might be extensively multiplied ; but it is better 
for the student to find them out for himself, after havino- 
“I • • O 
mastered the principles. 
blow, if we thus often examine the cells in the leaves, in parts 
which are modifications of leaves, and the stem, fruit, root, and 
other organs, of some of the flowering plants most commonly 
seen in our walks — say a Willow-herb or Bed- straw, a Loose- 
strife or Honeysuckle — we shall get remarkable results. In- 
deed, so plain and simple, so significant and beautiful will they 
prove, that onr first feeling may well be one of surprise that such 
characters have not been long since discovered, and usefully 
realized in descriptive or systematic botany. While we find 
raphides constantly abounding in the former two plants, in the 
latter two we shall as constantly find raphides wanting, and 
this in examples now purposely chosen from neighbouring 
orders of the British Elora. And having thus, as well as by 
repeated independent trials, found the constancy and truth of 
this character, how can we avoid the conviction that to the 
first two plants Nature has assigned, as an essential and 
intrinsic function by a structure of organic cells, the office 
of raphis -bearing, while to the last two plants she has not 
appointed that same office or structure ? And so this will 
appear to us not merely as an arbitrary or technical 
distinction, but as a truly regular and natural difference. 
What may be the exact value of such a character is another 
question, which can only be determined after far more time 
and talent have been devoted to the inquiry than I have been 
able to bestow. As every botanist well knows that even the 
highest physiological or anatomical characteristics are not 
without exceptions, so we may be sure that they will be found 
not less numerous in this new character. Irregularities 
of this kind occur in the Palms, and in other orders to be 
noticed presently. 
But it is with the rule, as far as it is yet known, that we 
are now concerned ; and so comes the question of the nature 
and distribution of ra^Dhides in flowering plants. And we 
must first give a description of, and explain the sense in which, 
on the present occasion, we use the terms raphides, crystal 
prisms, and sphseraphides. The etymologies are given in the 
Annals of Natural History for September, 1863. 
Baphides are the well-known transparent and colourless 
needle-shaped crystals, occurring in a bundle of about twenty. 
