GOETHE ON THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS. 371 
110. We, on the contrary, have begun by making observations upon 
annuals, and an application of the argument to longer-lived plants may’ 
be easily made ; for an opening bud on the old$st tree may be regarded, 
in some sort, as an annual plant, although capable of longer duration, 
and produced from an old stem. 
111. The second cause which checked the further progress of Linnaeus 
was, that he regarded the different circles enclosed one within the 
other in the stem of a plant [namely, the outer and the inner bark, 
thé wood, and the pith], as equally active and essential parts, alike 
instinct with life; and that he attributed the origin Of the flower and 
fruit to these different rings of the stem, because, like them, they en- 
circle each other, and appear to be developed one from the other.* But 
these were only superficial observations, which could never stand the 
_ test of a closer examination. Not only has the wood within become too 
hard, but the outer bark, in long-lived trees, is both too hard on the 
] outer side, and too slightly connected with the inner portion of the stem, 
to be the cause of any fresh development. In many trees it breaks 
away and falls off, and in others it may be stripped off without any in- 
jury to the tree, so that it cannot produce either the calyx or any 
other living part of the plant. It is in the second bark (liber) that 
all the power of life and growth resides; in proportion as this is in- 
jured, the growth of the plant is interrupted; it is this also, as close 
observation will convince us, which produces the external organs in 
succession on the stem, or simultaneously in the flower and fruit. 
. Limneus only aséribed to it the subordinate office of producing the 
petals! "The important production of the stamens, on the contrary, 
was attributed to the wood; it is clear, nevertheless, that however 
durable this portion of the plant may be, which solidification has 
rendered inactive, it is dead as regards any vital action. But the most 
important office of all was reserved for the pith ; that, namely, of pro- 
ducing the pistils and their numerous seeds, The doubts which have 
been raised as to the great importance thus ascribed to the pith, and 
* Cf, Linn. 'Prolepsis, § 7, 8. Wolfs account of the development of the 
flower, in his * Theoria Generationis, 1759, is much more in accordance with truth, 
and; with some slight exceptions, it is amply confirmed by m , To 
Wolff undoubtedly belongs the merit of being the first to insist on the necessity of 
examining the development of flowers, and of being the first to give, from actual ob- 
servation, a clear account of the process. : 
^ See note to 8 27. “See also Trécul, Ann. Soc. Nat., 8me série, tom. xx. p. 211, . 
and 4me série, tom. iii. 
2 52 
