270 VIEWS, &C. PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



dc Geneve (t. xlvii. 1831, p. 50) we find the following passage: 

 "Numerous examples seem to confirm the idea, that there 

 still exist, on our planet, trees of a prodigious antiquity the 

 witnesses, perhaps, of one or more of its latest physical revo- 

 lutions. If we consider a tree as the combination of as many 

 individual forms as there have been buds developed on its sur- 

 face, one cannot be surprised if the aggregate resulting from 

 the continual addition of new buds to the older ones, should 

 not necessarily have any fixed termination to its existence." In 

 the same manner, Agardh says : " If in each solar year new 

 parts be formed in the plant, and the older hardened ones be 

 replaced by new parts capable of conducting sap, we have a 

 type of growth limited by external causes alone." He ascribes 

 the short duration of the life of herbaceous plants, "to the 

 preponderance of the production of blossoms and fruit over 

 the formation of leaves." Unfruitfulness in a plant insures a 

 prolongation of its life. Endlicher adduces the instance of 

 an individual plant of Medicago sativa, var. /3 versicolor, 

 which lived eighty years because it bore no fruit.* 



To the dragon-trees, which, notwithstanding the gigantic 

 development of their closed vascular bundles, must be classed, 

 in respect to their floral parts, in the same natural family as 

 Asparagus and the garden onion, belongs the Adansonia, 

 (the monkey bread-tree, Baobab), undoubtedly among the 

 largest and most ancient inhabitants of our planet. In the 

 earliest voyages of discovery made by Catalans and Portuguese, 

 the sailors were accustomed to carve their names on these two 

 species of trees ; not always from a mere wish of perpetuating 

 their memory, but also as " marcos," or signs of possession, and 

 of the rights which nations assume in virtue of first discovery. 

 The .Portuguese mariners often selected for carving on the 

 trees, as a "marco," or mark of possession, the elegant French 

 motto talent de bien faire, so frequently employed by the 

 Infante Don Henrique, the Discoverer. Thus Manuel de 

 Faria y Sousa says expressly;! "Era uso de los primeros 

 Navegantes de dexar inscrito el motto del Infante, talent de 

 bien faire, en la corteza de los arboles."J (It was the custom 



* Grundziige derBotanilc, 1843, 1003. 

 f- Asia Portuguesa, t. i., cap. 2., pp. 14, 18. 



Compare also Barros, Asia, dec. i. liv. ii. ; cap. 2, t i. (Lisboa, 1778,} 

 p. 148. 



