METAMORPHOSIS IN PLANTS. 93 



blades but leaf-stalks {petioles), which simulate the leaf- 

 blade and discharge its functions {pky /lodes) ; in this plant 

 the leaf-blade, which is usually the important organ of 

 nutrition, is absent. Rootless plants offer good examples 

 of the assumption of a root-like form and function either by 

 underground stems (Psilotum, saprophytic orchids such as 

 Neottia, Corallo7'hiza, Epipoguni), or by leaves (Salvinici). 

 It would be easy but useless to multiply examples. 



We may now proceed to inquire what is the attitude of 

 modern morphology towards the doctrine of metamorphosis. 

 You will remember that I have mentioned the two possible 

 answers, the one concrete, the other abstract, to the im- 

 portant question, what is it that undergoes metamorphosis? 

 Are we to regard all the various forms of leaves, for instance, 

 as modifications of an ideal "type" — of an " Urblatt" — or 

 of some actually existing form ? Let us see what is the 

 verdict brought in by actual research. 



The point is one which has been much discussed. It 

 is not unnatural that some of the earlier writers, whilst 

 still under the influences of Goethe and his immediate 

 followers, should have accepted the abstract view. Thus 

 we find Alex. Braun writing : l " This ideal ladder which 

 Goethe perceived in the metamorphosis of plants, is a 

 speaking testimony of the profound conception of it which 

 he had formed ; for that which leads the formative process 

 of the plant from one rung to the next, which connects the 

 rungs into a ladder, which reveals each rung, though dis- 

 tinct from its predecessors, as a product of their modifica- 

 tion, cannot be other than inward and ideal ". Moreover 

 in a footnote he says further; "That Goethe was not alto- 

 gether free from the erroneous notion that one organ of a 

 plant might be actually transformed into another, for in- 

 stance, stamens into petals, or pistils into leaves, is evident 

 from the very first paragraph of his introduction ". The 

 same position has also been taken up by some later writers. 

 Thus Schmitz 2 says : " After all, stamens and foliage-leaves 



1 "A. Braun, Verjungung in der Natur," 185 1 : p. 61 of the English 

 translation, Botanical and Physiological Memoirs, Ray Society, 1853. 



2 Schmitz, "Die Bluthen-Entwickelung der Piperaceen," in Han- 

 stein's^^/ 1 . Abhandl., ii., 1872, p. 32, footnote. 



