Correspondence. 
i i 6 
To the Editor of the New Phytologist. 
Dear Sir, 
With reference to my article in the February number of this 
journal on the subject of the Origin of the Perianth, I have received 
from Professor K. Goebel, of Munich, an intimation to the effect that I 
have misrepresented his views on the subject of metamorphosis in flowers 
by stating that they are both “ idealistic ” and “ resemble Goethe’s 
type-theory.” In the first place it must be said that before penning 
the article I had not read, as I certainly should have done, Professor 
Goebel’s excellent “Treatise on Double Flowers” ( 1885 ), a treatise 
practically exhaustive in the number of interesting and valuable facts 
it contains. Flis views on the origin of the perianth are therein, and 
also in his “Organography of Plants” (the perusal of which I had 
also stupidly omitted) made plain. On page 276 of the first- 
mentioned work he says, when treating of the Ranunculacae : “ It 
cannot be denied that in many cases petals have arisen from meta 
morphosed stamens.But we have no real ground for 
making this a general rule.” Another passage runs thus : “ As in 
this case [Equisetum] certainly in many others, perianth and 
corolla-formation takes place through transformation of the leaf- 
rudiments occurring in the neighbourhood of the flower.” The calyx 
lie appears to regard with Prantl, as of bracteal origin. 
I take this occasion to make every apology to Professor Goebel 
for introducing his name in connexion with the subject without a 
discussion of those important views which most directly bear thereon. 
But the remarks with which Professor Goebel’s name was intro¬ 
duced, had reference to his theory on the morphology of the foliar 
organs of the flower expressed in an earlier work of his, the 
“ Vergleichende Untersuchungen,” and which may be stated thus: 
“ that any foliar organ of a flower, whether sepal, petal, stamen, or 
carpel, is a modification or transformation of a rudiment, which 
itself is always of the nature of a foliage-leaf Goebel’s view may, 
in other words, at least, as I understand it, be stated thus : “that the 
foliage-leaf is the morphological type from which all other kind^ of 
foliar organs are derived modifications.” This view, put forward 
without any apparent evidence to support or give reason for it, it is safe, 
as it appears to me, because correct, to describe as “ idealistic.” Is 
it less so than that of Goethe, who merely held that all foliar organs 
of the plant are modifications of the “ leaf,” by which he probably 
meant the foliage leaf? Or, if by type-leaf was meant a purely ideal 
entity, his view would, in my opinion, be much nearer the truth and 
might be merely a statement in concrete, though misleading, language 
of the fact that all foliar organs of the plant are modifications of a 
primeval ancestral foliar organ now no longer existing, which I for 
one would be the last to deny. The views of both Goethe and 
Goebel must be regarded as idealistic for the simple reason that they 
possess a purely subjective value, being unsupported by the necessary 
buttress of scientific argument or evidence. On the other hand, 
Celakovsky’s view regarding the ancestral type of the foliar organs, 
which is based on a definite well-thought-out line of scientific argu¬ 
ment and theory, is clearly the opposite of idealistic. 
