Metamorphosis of Plants

Short description: 1790 work by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Edition from 1790

Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären, known in English as Metamorphosis of Plants, was published by German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1790.[1] In this work, Goethe essentially discovered the (serially) homologous nature of leaf organs in plants, from cotyledons, to photosynthetic leaves, to the petals of a flower. Although Sir Richard Owen, the British vertebrate anatomist, is generally credited with first articulating a definition of the word "homology" (in 1843), it is clear that Goethe had already arrived at a sophisticated view of homology and transformation (within an idealist morphological perspective) more than fifty years earlier.

## See also

* Goethean science
* Phyllody
* Teratology

## References

1. ↑ Wellmann, Janina (2017). The Form of Becoming: Embryology and the Epistemology of Rhythm, 1760–1830. Zone Books. pp. 122-126. ISBN 9781935408765. https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/iPLCDgAAQBAJ. Retrieved June 30, 2026.

## External links

* Metamorphosis of Plants (poem) in English
* Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu Erklären (Gotha, 1790)
* The Metamorphosis of Plants, by Zemplén Gábor

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