GOETHE ON THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS. 389 
are little changed, and tipped with perfectly developed anthers; whilst 
. others are more or less contracted by anther-like protuberances.* 
2 49. When all the stamens are changed into. petals, the flower pro- 
duces no seed, but if any of the stamens are developed whilst the pro- 
cess by which the flower becomes double is going forward, fertilization 
may take place. 
50. A stamen, then, is produced by'the re-appearance of the self- 
same organ diminished and refined, which we just before saw expanded 
asa petal. The truth of the proposition put forward above is hereby 
again confirmed, and our attention becomes still more closely riveted 
on this operation of alternate contraction and expansion, by means 0 
which nature at length attains her object.T 
VII. Of the Nectaries. 
51. However rapidly the transition takes place in many plants from 
the corolla to the stamens, we nevertheless perceiv 
always effect it in a single stride; that is to say, she produces inter- 
Mediate organs which, in their form and office, at one time resemble 
the petals, and at another the stamens. Though varying extremely in 
form, they may nevertheless be almost all comprehended under one 
idea, namely, that there may be slow stages of transition between the 
tals and the stamens. 
) 52. Most of these differently-formed organs, which Linneus called 
hectaries, may be thus defined ; and here we have fresh reason to admire 
the great penetration shown by that extraordinary man, who without 
clearly comprehending their office, yet ventured, in reliance upon à 
surmise, to include apparently different organs under one and the same 
name, 
The t amens may be well seen in the common white 
Water Lily, in some species of A(ragene, etc. In Bocagea viridis there is no dif- - 
ce in form between the stamens and the petals. Double flowers result from 
the substitution of petals for stamens or istils, and from other causes. I 
; Mém. sur les Fleurs. Doubles, Mem. Soc. Are. f. iii. p. 402, and Moquin- 
Tandon, * Tératologie Végétale,’ p. 211. 
F Wolff’s original opini + the stamens were equivalent t 
Placed in the axil of the petals or sepals (see * Theoria Generations, 1759, 
an opinion which more recently has received the support of Agardh and 4 * 
Wolff himself, however, seems to have abandoned. his origina notion, for in his me- 
ione i jpue tum et de amnio spurio aliisque parti- 
bus embryonis Gallinacei, nondum visis," ete. in Comm, Acad. Petrop. ic Bs 403, 
he stamens as essentially leaves. See also, Linn. Erotepsis, 
Z2 
