reaches the highly elaborate form of the leaf only in the final stage,
the delphinium leaps forth at the outset, as it were, with the fully
accomplished leaf, and then protracts its withdrawal into the calyx
over a number of steps, so that this process can be watched with our
very eyes. In this type of metamorphosis the last leaf beneath the
calyx shows a form that differs little from that of a calyx itself,
with its simple sepals. Only in its general geometrical arrangement
does it still remind us of the original pattern.

In a case like this, the stem-leaves, to use Goethe's expression,
'softly steal into the calyx stage'.4 In the topmost leaf the plant has
already achieved something which, along the other line of
metamorphosis, is tackled only after the leaf plan itself has been
gradually executed. In this case the calyx stage, we may say, is
attained at one leap.

Whatever type of metamorphosis is followed by a plant (and there are
others as well, so that we may even speak of metamorphoses between
different types of metamorphosis!) they all obey the same basic rule,
namely, that before proceeding to the next higher stage of the cycle,
the plant sacrifices something already achieved in a preceding one.
Behind the inconspicuous sheath of the calyx we see the plant preparing
itself for a new creation of an entirely different order. As successor
to the leaf, the flower appears to us time and again as a miracle.
Nothing in the lower realm of the plant predicts the form, colour,
scent and all the other properties of the new organ produced at this
stage. The completed leaf, preceding the plant's withdrawal into the
calyx, represents a triumph of structure over matter. Now, in the
flower, matter is overcome to a still higher degree. It is as if the
material substance here becomes transparent, so that what is immaterial