METAMORPHOSIS IN PLANTS. Si 



anthers ; these petals are either exactly like those already 

 present, or they retain visible signs of their origin. (§ 4) 

 The hidden relationship between the various external parts 

 of the plant, such as the leaves, the calyx, the corolla, the 

 stamens, which develop one after the other and, as it were, 

 out of one another, has long been recognised by investi- 

 gators, and has indeed been specially studied ; and the 

 operation by which one and the same organ assumes various 

 forms has been termed the Metamorphosis of Plants. 

 {§ 119) As we have sought to explain all the apparently 

 different organs of the budding and blossoming plant from 

 a single one, namely, the leaf which usually develops at each 

 node ; so we have also ventured to derive from the leaf- 

 form those fruits which firmly enclose their seed." 



In these words the doctrine of Metamorphosis, as re- 

 gards the appendicular organs of the plant, is clearly stated : 

 all these parts are regarded as equivalent, whatever their 

 function or their external form. Postponing for the moment 

 the discussion of this generalisation, we may pause to con- 

 sider the method by which it was arrived at, as also the 

 labours of other workers in the same field. 



In addition to Goethe's, there are two names which must 

 always be mentioned when the subject of Metamorphosis 

 is under discussion, the names of Linnaeus and of Wolff. 

 With regard to Linnaeus, Goethe recognises in him one 

 -who had gone far along the same road as himself, but who 

 had tailed to attain so definite a goal. Linnaeus, it must 

 be admitted, had the sense of the equivalence of the different 

 appendicular organs, but he failed to express it in the clear 

 philosophic form which is the characteristic of Goethe's ex- 

 position : with him the idea was implicit, not explicit. The 

 first suggestion of it is to be found in his Systema Natures^ 

 where the following passages occur : " Prolepsis sistit 

 Metamorphoseos Plantarum mysterium, quo Herbae Larva 

 mutetur in Declaratam Fructificationem. . . . Florem 

 dum producat Arbor, Natura anticipabit quinque annorum 

 progenies, simul turn prodituras, formando e foliis gemmaceis 



1 Systema Naturce, ii., 1735; I quote from the thirteenth edition, 

 J77°> p. 8. 



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