AGE OF PLANTS. 151 



Mosses, for the most part, live only one season, as do 

 the garden plants called annuals, which die of old age 

 as soon as they ripen their seeds. Some, again, as 

 the foxglove and the holyhock, live for two years, 

 occasionally prolonged to three, if their flowering be 

 prevented. 



Trees, again, planted in a suitable soil and situation, 

 live for centuries. Thus, the singular elephant plant 

 has been said to attain, at the Cape of Good Hope, the 

 age of two hundred years, reckoning by the rings in 

 the bark of the crown ; the olive may live three hun- 

 dred years, the oak double that number ; the chestnut 

 is said to have lasted for nine hundred and fifty years ; 

 the dragon's blood tree of Teneriffe may be two thou- 

 sand years old ; and Adanson mentions banians six 

 thousand years old. 



De Candolle gives the following table of very old trees. 



Years. 



Elm . . . . .335 



Cypress .... about 350 

 Cheirostemon . . . about 400 



Ivy . . . . .450 



Larch ... .5/6 



Orange ..... 630 

 Olive . . . . .700 



Oriental Plane . . .720 and upwards 



Cedar of Lebanon . . . about 800 



Oak .... 870, 1080, 1500 



Lime . . . 1076, 1147 



Yew . . . 1214, 1458, 2588, 2880 



Taxodium . . . about 4000 to 6000 



Baobab . . 5] 50 (in the year 1757) 



When the wood of the interior ceases to afford 

 room, by the closeness of its texture, for the passage of 



