

GOETHE ON THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS. 27 
flowers. All that is requisite is to be able to work out the aforenamed 
ideas of expansion and contraction, approximation and anastomosis, as 
easily as we work out rules of algebra, and to know how to apply them 
in their proper places.* And, as much depends upon the exact ob- 
servation and comparison of the different gradations through which 
nature passes, both in the formation of genera, species, and varicties, 
and in the growth of individual plants,—a series of illustrations exhibit- 
ing these gradations, with explanations expressed in botanical termi- 
nology, would be both welcome and useful. We will now adduce two 
instances of proliferous flowers, having an important bearing upon this 
theory. 
XV. A Proliferous Rose. 
103. All that we have been endeavouring to grasp by the aid of 
thought and reason is shown in the clearest manner in the instance of 
a proliferous Rose. The calyx and corolla are developed and arranged 
round the axis ; but instead of the contracted receptacle with its stamens 
and styles in the centre, —the stem, variegated with green and red, again 
ascends; and on it are successively developed, unexpanded, dark-red_ 
petals of a smaller size, on some of which are visible traces of anthers. 
The stem goes on growing, prickles appear on it, the alternate petals 
continue to diminish in size, and change at last into stem-leaves, also 
variegated with red and green ; a series of regular nodes is formed, and 
from their buds small imperfect rose-buds burst forth.f 
104. This same example also affords us a visible proof that, as has 
been before explained, the outer border of the calyx may be considered 
as a number of approximated leaves (folia floralia, bracteæ) ; for the 
calyx here consists of five perfect, compound leaves, of three or five 
* “Every plant has its proper vital lines for these vibrations of the metamor- 
phosis ; the constructive representations of which lines will make clearly conceivable, 
characters which botanists have only seized in the most fragmentary manner, or 
have felt obscurely as something indescribable in the habit.” (Braun, ‘Rejuvenescence,’ 
Henfrey’s translation, p. 83.) No plant is more suggestive, or more worthy the at- 
tention of morphologists than the Welwitschia, described with so much care and 
acumen by Dr. Hooker in the paper above referred to. 
+ Goethe’s obscure and unscientific phraseology has constituted one of the main 
difficulties the translator has had to encounter in rendering the essay into English ; 
and moreover it may have afforded a reason for the little inclination scientific men 
had at first to entertain Goethe’s opinions. 
i Masters, ‘On Median and Axillary Prolification in Flowers,’ Transact, Linn. 
Soc. vol. xxiii. pp. 359-481, c. icon. 




