ON EAPHIDES. 
581 
opinion of other eminent botanists to the contrary. Snrel}’^ 
had these botanists looked into the intimate structure of the 
plants in question_, the beautiful raphidian cells of Leea must 
have pleaded its affinity with an order distinguished_, as just 
described^ by this very same natm’al character. Balsaminacecu , 
NyctaginacecEj and Phytolaccacece, are likewise characterized 
as raphis -bearing orders ; succeeded^ after a long interval_, by 
the like character in OnagracecEf Galiacece, and the herba- 
ceous Ginchonacece ; while it isolates the immense genus 
Mesemhryanthemum from all its allies. 
Raphides abound too in the herbaceous species of the old 
Ruhiacece, whether with or without stipules^ and are replaced 
by sphgeraphides in the shrubby or ligneous plants. This 
order has been divided_, chiefly on the disputed point of the 
presence or absence of stipules_, into Ginchonacece and Galiacea\ 
In the event of a reconstruction of these orders_, systematic 
botanists would have to determine what may be the relative 
value of stipules and raphides in this question. 
It is noteworthy that_, in the foreign Flora,, we find raphides 
in several exogenous trees and shrubs,, as may be well seen in 
Nyctaginacece, but of which I have yet found no example in 
such woody plants of our native Flora. 
The results,, less perplexed by the multiplicity of objects, 
may appear more distinct and interesting to British botanists 
in their own Flora. Referring to Professor Babingtoffis excel- 
lent Manual of British Botany/^ the leading phenomenon that 
meets us among the Dicotyledones is the curious conflux and 
limitation of raphides to the three orders, Balsaminacece, Ona- 
gracece, and Galiacece ; a valuable diagnostic character, which 
he may well adopt in future. How so many of our trees and 
shrubs, destitute of raphides, though affluent of other crystals, 
came to be cited by authors as raphis-b earing plants, arose from 
the confusion of terms already explained. And as to the 
Monocotyledones we find more than half of them, including the 
Grasses, regularly devoid of raphides. The DictyogencB still all 
raphis-bearers, and standing between two orders — Goniferce and 
Hydrocharidacece — lacking this character, while this last-named 
order appears between Bioscoreacece and Orchidacece,^ two 
* Of this order our pretty Lady’s Tresses (Spiranthes autumnalis), to he 
found flowering during late summer in upland pastures, and the Marsh 
Helleborine {Epipactis latifolia), blooming a few weeks earlier m damp 
places, are good plants in which to observe the bundles of raphides within, 
and much smaller than, their pale, soft cells. In the Lady’s Tresses the 
raphidian cells may be well seen, without disturbance, in their natural 
situation, through the semitransparent margins of the bract-like stem-leaves. 
An old dried portion of a leaf of this plant, now before me, after having been 
