206 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MARCH 
the introductory paragraph only, though with general application throughout 
t apter. am blameworthy for this oversight ; perhaps the author is 
not wholly blameless for the impression which led to it 
I also am stating a personal conclusion when I call the theory of meta- 
orphosis pernicious. This conclusion is the basis of my criticism of the 
discussion of the flower. I call any theory or thinking pernicious which leads 
us to hold and to state a subjective conception as an objective reality. The 
fundamental postulate of the theory or metamorphosis is wholly conceptual 
in that it assumes a type or pattern for a member, such as a leaf, or group of 
members, such as a flower. The following, from p. 34, illustrates this and 
might have been written by Goethe himself]: 
Progressive metamorphosis also occurs. It is seen in the gradual transformation 
of bracts, themselves transformed leaves, into sepals i in the barberry (fig. 61), and of 
the flowers of the gelge where organs have been seen intermediate in appearance 
between the tw 
How much Cele is that than Cesalpino’s sixteenth century idea that the 
seeds are produced by the transformation of the pith ? Would it not be bet- 
ter to state the facts, without alleging that a “transformation” occurs in the 
leaves, etc., which exists only in our imagination ?—C, R. B. 
