582 
POPULAE SCIENCE EEVIEW. 
orders in wliidi^ on tlie contrary_, rapliides abound ; the main or 
parallel-veined group of Monocotyledones still beginning, stiU 
ending, with orders wanting rapbides. Tiiphacece, Aracece^ 
and Lemnacece, all rapbis -bearing plants — Avitb tbe reconcileable 
exception of Acorns — and yet these three rapbidian orders 
standing closely together, and immediately preceded and suc- 
ceeded by tbe two exrapbidian orders Alismacece and Pota- 
mogetonacece. Among LiliacecGj though the Onions, the Tulip, 
Fritillary, and Lilies are regularly barren of raphides, the Star 
of Bethlehem, the Squills, the Blue-bell, and the Grape Hya- 
cinth are as regularly pregnant with raphides; characters 
likely to be usefully extended and defined in the revision 
which both the whole order and its sections seem to require. 
Finally, a multiplication of independent inquiries may be 
expected to correct the details and inferences, which are only 
submitted provisionally, throughout the present memoir ; and 
it is hoped that the whole question will successfully invite, if 
not truly merit, that further research, by which alone my 
observations can be either restricted or confuted, extended or 
confirmed. But surely, simple and plain evidence has now 
proved the novelty and importance of the subject ; and that, 
without a discriminative recognition of raphides as an intrinsic 
and essential, distinct and characteristic result of the cell-life 
of several groups of plants, no fair and complete history can 
be written of the Vegetable Kingdom. 
Edenbridge, Kent, Sejpt. 5, 1865. 
soaked for some hours in water at the temperature of the air, and gently 
pressed between the object-plate and a thinner bit of glass, shows the 
raphidian cells admirably. So do numerous growiug plants of other orders of 
Exogens nearer at hand, such as the Mesembryanthemums, so commonly cul- 
tivated as window-plants, the Fuchsia, the Vine, and the Virginian Creeper. 
At this season, too, the berries of raphis-bearing plants, as the Asparagus, 
Fuchsia, Black Bryony, and the Cuckoo-pint, are interesting objects for ex- 
amination. The raphidian cells of some of those fruits are depicted in the 
Annals of Natural History for November, 1863. 
