348 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
In studying plant life, the fact is often forcibly presented to 
us that while all the designs of Nature seem to refer rather to 
the future than the present, yet each stage and phase of life is 
perfect in itself, and is none the less lovely or apparently con- 
tent with its existence because it is transient and preparative 
for another set of organs tending to accomplish the higher ends 
of existence. 
No class of plants affords such evident and interesting 
examples of the law of morphology in vegetables as do the 
Leguminosce. In the white clover we frequently meet with 
cases in which parts of the flower exhibit a tendency to re- 
turn to their leafy origin : the pod frequently changes into a 
small leaf, whilst the stamens, petals, and sepals all exhibit 
the same tendency, the pedicels of the flowers at the same 
time elongating’. We have seen many specimens where the 
■whole head of flowers on a stalk of clover has undergone 
this transformation, presenting the most singular appearance 
possible, with the green leaves looking as if quite out of then’ 
accustomed place, and, consequently, very odd and uncomfoi't- 
able. In passing through a field of clover it is worth while 
to look for such monstrosities, and they are by no means 
uncommon. 
We are indebted to the pencil of a lady (Mrs. Godwin- Austen) 
for a series of beautiful illustrations of the changes undergone by 
the flowers of the White Clover in their most sportive moods, 
(figs. 8,9, 10, 11, 12). These were exhibited at the Meeting of the 
British Association, at Birmingham, in 1 849, and were after- 
wards published in Henfrey’s Botanical Gazette for March, 1850. 
Through her kindness we are enabled to give a sketch of some 
of the more interesting forms which these flowers assume. 
It was a happy idea of the great German poet-botanist to 
reduce the previously received and complicated theory of plant 
structure to the simple formula of leaf formation. In this way 
everything presented itself to him under a different aspect : 
— what had been considered essential became accidental, and 
vice versa. In all the higher plants, foliage, flowers, and fruit 
were regarded as essentially different parts. It was Goethe 
who first recognized in the flower and fruit the recurrence of 
the foliage, so that there is no essential difference between 
these three parts of a plant. In studying this subject some- 
what carefully, it becomes evident that it is the leaf which, in 
its Protean capability of transformation, gradually assumes the 
form of fruit or flower. These are truly leaves,— whorls of 
leaves differing in character and position from other leaves, 
although not in them essential nature. This great doctrine of 
unity of plan in creation was first demonstrated and success- 
fully taught in relation to the vegetable kingdom, and has since 
