THE VEGETAJILE KINGDOM. 517 



Thus, then, we repeat, actual science demonstrates what 

 antiquity had only dimly seen. 



To us a tree is no longer a simple individual ; it is an 

 agglomeration, a republic of isolated beings, which fashion 

 its branches as the polype of the coral constructs its 

 boughs ; in fact, it is a vegetable polypidom. 



The slow development of the trunks of certain trees at 

 ouce calls up images of immobility and eternity. The 

 dragon's-blood tree of the Canaries awakens such thoughts. 



Thrice famous for its strange look, its vast size, and its 

 antiquity, this dragon's-blood tree is equally so for the sta- 

 tionary condition of its growth. In the legends of Tenerifie 

 we are told that this singular tree was worshipped by the 

 Guanches, its original inhabitants ; and it is related that in 

 the fifteenth century mass was celebrated in the interior of 

 its trunk, a fact even lately attested by the vestiges which 

 were seen of a little altar. This tree grows so slowly that 

 after a tolerably long interval of time it was not possible to 

 verify any change in its circumference. It was accurately 

 measured in 1402 by the companions of Bethencourt at the 

 time when they discovered the island, that is to say more 

 than 460 years ago, and since then it has in no way in- 

 creased in diameter. Time has passed over without touch- 

 ing it. 1 Humboldt, when he ascended the peak of Teneriffe 

 in 1799, measured this tree a little above the level of the 

 ground, and found it forty-five feet in circumference. 



[This tree is said to have been destroyed by a storm in 1867. Tr.] 



