Chap, ii.] Organs from Cesalpino to Linnaeus. 103 



herb is a continuation of the medullary substance of the root ; 

 the principle of the flowers and leaves is the same, because both 

 spring from the tissue-layers surrounding the pith, as Cesalpino 

 had taught. The statement which follows, that the principle of 

 the bud and the leaves is identical, would be a departure from 

 Cesalpino, and in any case inconsistent, without the explana- 

 tion that the bud consists of rudimentary leaves ; but this again 

 puts the axial portion of the bud out of sight. The perianth, 

 he says, comes from concrescent rudiments of leaves. How 

 closely Linnaeus adhered to Cesalpino in his later years 

 appears in his explanation of the catkin, which comes next 

 and which is taken entirely from Cesalpino's theory. That 

 a more superficial and a more profound conception pursue 

 their way together unadjusted in Linnaeus' speculations on form 

 is specially shown by the fact, that in the text of the ' Philosophia 

 Botanica,' paragraph 84, he places the ' stipulae ' under the idea 

 of ' fulcra ' and not under that of ' folia,' while on the contrary at 

 the end of the same work, where he brings together the 

 different paragraphs respecting metamorphosis, he speaks of 

 the 'stipulae' as appendages of the leaves. 



The idea of Cesalpino, that the parts of the flower which 

 surround the fruit arise like the ordinary leaves from the tissues 

 that enclose the pith, is further developed by Linnaeus in his 

 '. Metamorphosis Plantarum,' in the fourth volume of the 

 'Amoenitates Academicae ' (1759), in a very strange manner. 

 He compares the formation of the flower with the metamor- 

 phosis of animals, and especially of insects, and after describing 

 the changes that take place in animals, he says at page 370 

 that plants are subject to similar change. The metamorphosis 

 of insects consists in the putting off different skins, so that 

 they finally come forth naked in their true and perfect form. 

 This metamorphosis we also find in most plants, for they 

 consist, at least in the truly living part of the root, of rind, bast, 

 wood, and pith. The rind is to the plant what the skin is to 

 the larva of an insect, and after putting this skin off there 



