238 DR. CARUS ON THE KINGDOMS OF NATURE, 
entirely different from the former, but in a continually progressive trans- 
formation of the original types, a succession of metamorphoses, on the 
nature of which we have received the most interesting information in 
the excellent observations of Goethe*. It appears that while the first 
rough type, as it were, of the whole plant is contained in the coatings or 
leaves of the seed (cotyledons), which abound with a gross and yet 
unelaborated sap; the same type is manifested more plainly in the 
successive divisions of the stem (internodia), and in the leaves, in which, 
when we compare the upper with the lower leaves which surround the 
stem, its progressive improvement becomes very distinctly evident. 
As soon as the plant has formed its leaves, which perform the functions 
of the organs of respiration and secretion, and has thus purified its 
fluids, it goes on to produce the flower, which is its most complete 
organ, entirely under the influence of the light. Even this transition is 
not performed suddenly, but is prepared by the formation of the calyx, 
wherein the leaves of the stem begin to contract themselves, while they 
unite in greater numbers around a common axis in the same plane: this 
formation shows itself most evidently in the collective calyx of flowers 
belonging to the class Syngenesia, in which the pappus performs the 
function of the calyx of single flowers. Moreover, the calyx itself 
constitutes the most evident transition to the corolla, the functions 
_of which it often performs; and the corolla is only a finer calyx for the 
organs of generation, which, as the most compact and perfect organs, 
issue forth from their last organ of development and preparation, as 
from a covering which they have last thrown aside. It is a remarkable 
fact, and one which places the correctness of these views beyond doubt, 
that too rich a nourishment, and the accumulation of too many fluids 
not yet properly purified, may cause a retrograde organization of these 
parts; the organs of generation may be transformed into flower-leaves 
(as in double flowers), the leaves of the calyx may be changed back 
again into leaves of the stem (as is often the case in the calyx of the 
rose), and instead of the organs of generation, a new shoot or internodium, 
bearing a new flower, may appear (as in the proliferous roses or Rose- 
kings+). When, after such successive progression, the plant has reached 
the highest point of polarity between root and flower (gravitation and 
light), between which the stem and leaves may be considered as mere 
connecting links, similar in their function to that of the epidermis be- 
tween the cellular system and the system of the spiral vessels, the same 
opposition appears once more under the form of male and female sta- 
mina; the latter of which, as containing the germ of a new plant (the 
seed), belong more to the reproductive system, and stand more under 
the influence of the earth. Wherefore the inferior plants, such as 
* Kersuch die Metamorphose der Planzen xu erklaren. Gotha, 1790, Re- 
printed in the Hefte zur Naturwissenschaft und Morphologie, 1817, i, 
[+ Rosenkénigen, Germ.] 
