Two hundred years ago the German poet and scientist J.W. Goethe described the metamorphosis of plants as an “open secret.” When studying the plant world today, can the scientist penetrate to the “inside” of nature? Is it possible, by putting the microscope to one side for a moment, to go beyond the conventional methods of plant analysis and learn to “think as nature thinks”?

By applying the Goethean scientific method — the chief tools of which are not the microscope but participatory thinking and applied imagination — authors Jochen Bockemühl and Andreas Suchantke have shown how accurate naked-eye observation of leaf, stem, and flower forms can reveal so much that is hidden from conventional microscopic analysis.

Andreas Suchantke’s essay on “The Metamorphosis of Plants as an Expression of Juvenilisation in the Process of Evolution” (Chapter 4) throws a new light on evolution; the emerging picture is breathtaking, exhilarating!

Contents
Introduction by Norman Skillen
1. The Leaf: “The True Proteus” — Andreas Suchantke
2. Morphic Movements in the Vegetative Leaves of Higher Plants — Jochen Bockemühl
3. The Morphic Movements of Plants as Expressions of the Temporal Body — Jochen Bockemühl
4. The Metamorphosis of Plants as an Expression of Juvenilisation in the Process of Evolution — Andreas Suchantke
5. Notes on the Authors