233 
scopical Science.’ And this the more so, as it is quite true 
that vague statements and perplexing errors concerning 
raphides are too prevalent even in our best and latest books 
on the microscope ; while the importance of these crystals 
as truly constant and natural characters in systematic 
botany has neither been realised nor recognised in our 
floras. 
Indeed, the whole question of the value of our plant-cells 
as diagnostic characters of nearly allied orders and species 
has been so strangely neglected that attention has been again 
very judiciously directed to it by the editors of this Journal. 
At present we have only detached and fragmentary materials 
to the purpose ; and even these are regularly ignored by the 
most excellent systematists, native and foreign; although many 
separate observations, such as those by Hoffmann and Weddell 
on Lemna and Wolffia, and my o^vn on raphides and on the 
remarkable differences between either the tissue-cells or the 
pollen-grains of distinct species of one and the same genus, 
have clearly proved the importance of such characters. A 
more general conviction to the same effect can hardly fail to 
follow further and exact inquiries in this direction ; and it 
has been truly remarked by Dr. Lankester 1 that “ the bio- 
graphy of plants has yet to be written, microscope in hand, 
for, until we have recorded the minute details of the cell-life 
of each species, we shall not be in a position to arrive at the 
laws which govern the life of the vegetable kingdom.” And 
how, it may be added, without such observation can we ever 
expect to comprehend and realise all those mysterious plans 
and specialties by which nature has marked, for our in- 
struction, her own affinities and contrasts in aHied groups 
of that kingdom ? 
Thus raphides are far from being mere microscopic 
curiosities. Neither are they “ products of disease like stony 
concretions in animals,” nor simply “ inorganic crystals in 
organized nature.” On the contrary, raphides are a constant 
and intrinsic result of the healthy cell-life of certain plants, 
occurring within and as part and parcel of a living cell, 
having its definite boundary, the protoplasm or cell-sap, 
immediately enclosing the crystals, and withal forming a 
beautiful organism as distinct as a pollen-grain or blood-cell 
from any product nearly chemical. 
The different crystals named at the head of this paper are 
as remarkable for their beauty as for the facility and certainly 
with which they may be found and distinguished, displayed, 
and preserved. To find them nothing more is required than to 
1 ‘ Quart. Journ. Micros. Science,’ Oct. 1863, and Jan., 1866. 
