Versuch die Metamorphose der Pflanzen zu erklären

Metamorphosis of Plants

Author

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Language

German

Year

1790

Country

Germany

Genre

Nonfiction / Essays / Treatise

enlightenmentromanticismsentimentalismsturm und drang

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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. 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", it is clear that Goethe had already arrived at a sophisticated view of homology and transformation more than fifty years earlier.