CHAPTER IV. 



THE APPARENT PERENNITY OF COMPLEX 

 INDIVIDUALS. 



Millenary trees — Plants with a definite rhizome — Vegetables 

 reproduced by cuttings — Animal colonies — Destruction due 

 to extrinsic causes — Difficulty of interpretation. 



Popular opinion teaches us that living beings have 

 only a transient existence, and as a poet has said: 

 " Life is but a flash between two dark nights." But, 

 on the other hand, simple observation shows us, or 

 appears to show us, beings whose duration of exist- 

 ence is far longer, and practically illimitable. 



Millenary Trees. — We know of trees of venerable 

 antiquity. Among these patriarchs of the vegetable 

 world there is a chestnut tree on Mount Etna which 

 is ten centuries old, and an ivy in Scotland which is 

 said to be thirty centuries old. Trees of 5000 years 

 old are not absolutely unknown. We may mention 

 among those of that age the famous dragon tree^ at 

 Orotava, in the island of Teneriffe. Two other 

 examples are known in California — the pseudo-cedar, 

 or Tascodiuin, at Sacramento, and a Sequoia gigantea. 

 We know that the olive tree may live 700 years. 

 There are cedars 800 years old and oaks of the age of 

 1,500 years. 



Plants ivith a Rhizome. — Vegetable species of 



^ Lately destroyed in a storm. [Tr.] 



