  The edge of chaos is analyzed in a spatially extended system, modeled by the
regularized long-wave equation, prior to the transition to permanent
spatiotemporal chaos. In the presence of coexisting attractors, a chaotic
saddle is born at the basin boundary due to a smooth-fractal metamorphosis. As
a control parameter is varied, the chaotic transient evolves to well-developed
transient turbulence via a cascade of fractal-fractal metamorphoses. The edge
state responsible for the edge of chaos and the genesis of turbulence is an
unstable travelling wave in the laboratory frame, corresponding to a saddle
point lying at the basin boundary in the Fourier space.
