CHEERY RIPE. 75 



what a contrast is presented in its smooth swelling globular 

 form to that of the flat and pointed leaf, with its sharply- 

 cut serrations at the edges, even as its fierce flaming 

 colour is in striking opposition to the cool green of the 

 foliage ! And yet pleasanter is it to the taste, that morsel 

 of delicate flesh all oozy with freshening juice. Can any 

 likeness be found there to the dry crude matter which 

 fills up the veiny network of the leaves ? Yet, says the 

 morphologist, this red tasteful ball of juicy pulp is but, 

 after all, a leaf; altered, it is true call it perfected or call 

 it perverted, whichever term may be preferred but still 

 a leaf, and nothing more ; and it is a cherry-tree which is 

 especially pointed to as the triumphant vindication of 

 this view. The first hint of its being possible that leaves 

 were gradually transmuted into all the other organs of a 

 plant appears to have been given by Linnaeus, but it was 

 the poet G-oethe who wrought out the idea and developed 

 it into a system, now so generally adopted that there are 

 few, if any, naturalists who do not admit at least its great 

 principles, viz., that the laws which regulate vegetable 

 structure are so simple and uniform that their action in 

 every part of a plant are exactly similar, and the arrange- 

 ment of any subsequent development is but a repetition 

 of that which was observed in the normal germ ; as a 

 melody may be made the theme of a thousand variations, 

 yet through all the " linked sweetness long drawn out " 

 the notes of the original air be still distinctly traced. 

 According to this theory, then, a flower-bud, being exactly 

 analogous to a leaf-bud, the object into which it developes 

 is to be considered as a metamorphosed branch, though, 

 instead of shooting out into a long twig garnished through- 

 out its length with scattered leaves all formed upon one 

 pattern, its energies, compressed within nearer limits, 

 unfold into a more closely gathered group of objects of 

 diversified form and texture. In ascending or progressive 

 metamorphosis the first departure from the regular form 

 of the leaf is seen in the usually still green and somewhat 

 leaf-like sepals, or divisions of the calyx ; the next modi- 

 fication changes these into the petals or divisions of the 

 corolla ; one more advance contracts these into stamens ; 



