
32 GOETHE ON THE METAMORPHOSIS OF PLANTS. 
flower, all the parts become contracted ; increase in height and breadth 
has ceased, and all the organs, now in an extremely contracted state, are 
developed in close proximity. 
115. But whether a plant produces leaf-buds, flower, or fruit, it is 
still ¿he selfsame organ which is carrying nature’s laws into effect, 
though performing different offices, and disguised under different forms.* 
The same organ which on the stem expands as the leaf, exhibiting every 
variety of form, is contracted in the calyx, again expands in the petal, 
and is once more contracted in the stamens and pistils, to expand for 
the last time in the fruit.+ 
116. This operation of nature is combined with another ; by means 
of which different organs are assembled round a common centre, in a de- 
finite number and order; subject however to variation in many flowers, 
and under certain circumstances. 
117. An anastomosis likewise co-operates in the formation of the 
flowers and fruit ; by means of which the delicate organs of reproduc- 
tion are brought into the closest connection with each other, either 
through the whole period of their duration, or at least during a part 
of it. 
118. But these phenomena of approximation, centralization, and 
anastomosis are not peculiar to the flower and fruit; we may perceive 
something of the same kind also in the cotyledons. 
119. Now in the same way as we have endeavoured to deduce all 
the apparently different organs of a plant, whether producing buds or 
flowers, from one and the same organ,—namely, the leaf, which is usually 
developed at the nodes; we have farther ventured to refer to the same 
origin, the fruit (seed-vessel), within which the seeds lie safely en- 
closed. 
120. It was obviously necessary to adopt some general term, by which 
to indicate the one organ which we see metamorphosed under so many 
different forms ; and which we could also employ in comparing these 
variations with each other. The thing to be now aimed at is to keep 
habitually in view the two contrary directions, if we may so speak, in 
* Dr, ini ' fonti 
th eli mine af a es modo er 
stances, by no means militates against the truth of Goethe’s propositions. See 
Dresser, ‘ Rudiments of d pp. 277, 299. p 
T See Wigand, * Kritik und Geschichte d 10 d 
Pflanzen,’ 1846, p. 118 eschie er Lehre von der Metamorphose der 

