ABSTRACT The term Raphides (from φαϕςι, a needle) was first applied by De Candolle to certain needle-like crystals found in the tissues of plants. The term has since been extended by some writers to all crystals found, in plants, whilst others, adhering to the etymology of the word, apply it only to crystals of an acicular form. Schleiden discards the word altogether, and perhaps it would be better to get rid of a term which has neither accuracy nor utility to recommend it. The discovery of crystals in plants is due to Malpighi, who first figured crystals found in a species of Opuntia in his ‘Anatomy of Plants’ The needle-like crystals were afterwards described by Rafu as occurring in the milky juice of the Euphorbiaceæ. Jurin found the same kind of crystals in the leaves of Leucojum verum. Raspail was the first to demonstrate that many of these crystals were oxalate of lime—a fact that Scheele had demonstrated with regard to the crystals found in the roots of the common rhubarb. The most elaborate and complete paper on this subject was published by Edwin Quekett, and appeared in the appendix to the third edition of ‘Lindley’s Introduction to Botany’ in 1839. Since that time various observers have -published observations on this subject. The late Professor John Quekett, in a paper in the ‘Microscopical Transactions,’ showed that many of these crystals had an organic basis. Mr. Rainey, in his ‘Researches on the Mineral Structure of Vegetable and Animal Cells,’ has contributed many observations on the presence of crystalline matters in vegetable cells. In the January number of the ‘Annals of Natural History? Professor Gulliver, in a paper “On the Raphides of British Plants,” says : “It appears to me that these raphides are deserving of more attention than they have yet received both in relation to the structure and economy of vegetables, and as affording a wide, interesting, and scarcely cultivated field of research for the chemical phytologist.” These raphides, he adds, “may also be often useful as diagnostic characters in systematic botany when others are not available ; for example, a mere fragment of one of the Onagraceæ or of the Lemnaceæ may be so surely distinguished simply by its raphides from some of its near allies in other orders, that this fact ought henceforth to be added to the description of the orders just mentioned, independently of its value in other respects.” “Though common in some orders, it is remarkable that the raphides are so rare where they might be most expected, that I have not a single note of their presence in young parts of the stem, leaves, and flowers of British Oxalidaceae, Umbelliferæ, Labiateæ, Euphorbiaceæ, or Polygonaceæ, and even among Crassulaceæ. No crystals were found in Sedum Telephium and S’. acre”