GOETHE ON THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS. 13 
“are little changed, and tipped with perfectly-developed anthers ; whilst 
others are more or less contracted by anther-like protuberances.* 
49. When all the stamens are changed into petals, the flower pro- 
duces no seed ; but if any of the stamens are developed whilst the pro- 
cess by which the flower becomes double is going forward, fertilization 
may take place. 
50. A stamen, then, is produced by the re-appearance of the self- 
same organ diminished and refined, which we just before saw expanded 
as a petal. The truth of the proposition put forward above is hereby 
again confirmed ; and our attention becomes still more closely riveted | 
on this operation of alternate contraction and expansion, by means of | 
which nature at length attains her object. | 
VIL. Of the Nectaries. 
51. However rapidly the transition takes place in many plants from 
the corolla to the stamens, we nevertheless perceive that nature cannot 
always effect it in a single stride; that is to say, she produces inter- 
mediate organs which, in their form and office, at one time resemble 
the petals, and at another the stamens. Though varying extremely in 
form, they may nevertheless be almost all comprehended under one 
idea; namely, that there may be slow stages of transition between the 
petals and the stamens. | 
52. Most of these differently-formed organs, which Linnæus called | 
nectaries, may be thus defined ; and here we have fresh reason to admire 
the great penetration shown by that extraordinary man; who without | 
clearly comprehending their office, yet ventured, in reliance upon a | 
surmise, to include apparently different organs under one and the same i 
name. 

* The transition from petals to stamens may be well seen in the common white 
Water Lily (Plate, Fig. 2, a, b, e, d), in some species of Adrayene, etc. In Bocagea à 
3 viridis there is no difference in form between the stamens and the petals. Double | 
flowers result from the substitution of petals for stamens or pistils, and from other | 
causes. See De Candolle, Mém. sur les Fleurs Doubles, Mém. Soc. Arc. t. iii, p. 
402, and Moquin-Tandon, * Tératologie Végétale,’ p. 211. 
+ Wolff's original opinion was that the stamens were equivalent to so many buds 
placed in the axil of the petals or sepals (see * Theoria Generationis, 1759, $ 114)— 
an opinion which more recently has received the support of Agardh and Endlicher. 
Wolff himself, however, seems to have abandoned his original notion, for in his me- 
moir; “ De formatione intestinorum preccipue tum et de amnio spurio aliisque parti- 
bus embryonis gallinae»i, nondum visis," ete., in Comm. Acad. Petrop. xii. p. 403, 
Pa 1766, he considers the stamens as essentially leaves, See also, Liun, Prolepsis, 
viii. 


