42 IV. C. IVorsdell — 
THE ORIGIN OF THE PERIANTH OF FLOWERS 
With Special Reference to the Ranunculace^e. 
[Plate III.] 
C ASPAR FRIEDRICH WOLFF 1 was the first to hint at the 
origin of the flower as being the outcome of a gradual meta¬ 
morphosis of the foliage-leaves situated at a lower level on the axis 
of the plant. He held that the production of floral leaves was the 
result of a degeneration in the quality of the sap, the richer portion 
being used up at a lower level by the first-formed vigorous foliage- 
leaves. Goethe'-, however, first established the theory of the under¬ 
lying homology of all foliar organs of the plant. Hm main idea 
.was that the floral leaves represented the final stage in a gradual 
ascending metamorphosis of which the foliage-leaves are the 
starting-point, and that the production of flowers is due to an 
improvement and etherealisation of the sap during its ascent through 
the plant. All foliar organs are variants on an ideal type-leaf. 
These two great thinkers dealt solely with the individual develop¬ 
ment of the plant; they, like so many biologists since their time, 
failed to see that this could throw no real light upon the ultimate 
phylogenetic development of the parts concerned. 
Goebel 3 states that the type of which all foliar organs are the 
modifications is the foliage-leaf , a view sufficiently idealistic and 
resembling Goethe’s “type-theory.” 
We hold, for cogent reasons 4 which it is beyond the scope of 
this article to enlarge upon, that fertile foliar organs (or sporophylls) 
preceded in time all other kinds of leaves, and that the latter have 
been gradually differentiated from the former by a process of 
sterilisation of their tissues. 
1 Wolff, C. F. Theoria Generationis, 1759. 
2 Versucli die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erkliireu, Gotha, 
1790 (“ Essay 011 the Metamorphosis of Plants; ” translated 
by Emily M. Cox in Seemann’s Journal of Botany, Vol. I., 
1863). 
3 “Die vergleichende Entwickelungsgeschichte der Pflan- 
genorgane; ” Schenk’s Handbuch der Botauik, Vol. III., 
part 1, p. 100, 18S4. 
4 See Cclcikovsky : “ Ueber die allgemeine Entwickelungsges- 
cliiclite des Pflanzenreiches; ” Kgl. bolim. Gesellsch. 
der Wissenschaften ; Naturwiss.-Mathem. Section, 1868. 
“ Ueber den phylogeuetischen Entwic’kelungsgang der Bliithe, 
etc., part 1, p. 7, loc. cit., Prag, 1896. 
“Ueber den phylogeuetischen Entwickelungsgang der Bliithe, 
etc., part 2, p. 162, Prag, 1900. 
“ Naclitrag zu meiner Schrift iiber die Gymnospermeii; ” 
Englers Bot. Jahrbiich, etc., Vol. XXIV., part 2, 1897. 
Epilog zu meiner Schrift liber die Placenteu der Angiospermen; 
(appendix) Sitzungsb. d. Kgl. bolim. Ges. d. Wiss., 1899. 
