456 i Flora Unveiled
energy of primary force, to proceed toward endless propagation.” This mystical definition of
pollination was derived from Goethe’s discussion in Metamorphosis of Plants of the refine-
ment of the sap required for “spiritual anastomosis.” It also bore a resemblance to Goethe’s
description of death in his 1820 letter to Zelter as the transition from one world to another,
in which “all that is real” is refined and dissolved into “symbol.”
According to Goethe’s 1820 account of his conversation with Schelver, Schelver explicitly
associated pollination with death by equating it with sporulation by pathogenic fungi. For
example, Schelver confused fungal spores with pollen on infected barberry leaves:
We know that the blossoming barberry bush diffuses a strange odor that may cause
wheat fields in the vicinity to become unproductive. An unusual quality may be hid-
den within this plant, as we may indeed infer from the sensitiveness of its anthers. It
diffuses its pollen insufficiently during the flowering period; thus we may later finds
bits of pollen emerging from leaves which may even develop in the manner of calyx
and corolla to form the most magnificent cryptogam.Goethe also cites wheat rust disease as an example of pollination as a symptom of disease:Grain rust furnishes an example of delayed pollination terminating in nothingness.
Through what irregularity of growth does a plant sink into a condition where, instead
of joyfully and vigorously developing numerous progeny, it tarries on a lower step and
finally executes the pollination act perniciously?Somewhat bizarrely, Goethe even cites a moldering housefly as an example of pollination:In autumn we can observe that flies fasten themselves on windows, remain motion-
less for a time, and then gradually eject a white pollen. The chief source of this natural
phenomenon seems to be situated at the point where the midriff is joined to the hind
part. ... The pollination takes place gradually and continues for some time after the
creature’s death.Such a macabre interpretation of pollination reflects a darker, more “Cimmerian” view
of nature, which Goethe and his youthful companions had once attributed to old people
who could no longer remember “how berries and cherries taste.” Indeed, the association
of sexuality with contagion and death was always a powerful undercurrent in German
Romanticism, but in Goethe’s case this aspect of Naturphilosophie only surfaced in his
later years.^77
If Goethe never explicitly rejected the sexual theory, he qualified it and redefined
it so broadly as to make it meaningless. However, he was clear and unequivocal on one
point: Schelver’s new pollination theory was ever so much more suitable for the instruction
of “young persons and ladies” than the standard version:
For the instruction of young persons and ladies this new pollination theory will be
extremely welcome and suitable. In the past the teacher of botany has been placed in