THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 549 



Vera Cruz to Mexico, and is celebrated for having sheltered 

 the whole army of Fernando Cortez beneath its mighty 

 shade. Its birth, according to some botanists, seems to 

 date from an epoch so remote as to be almost beyond 

 our ken. As its trunk, which is 117 feet in circumference, 

 surpasses that of the baobabs, and as its gTowth is slower 

 than theirs, De CandoUe suj^poses this tree may be not 

 less than 6000 years old, which carries back its origin to 

 the times anterior to the Mosaic creation.^ 



Meanwhile we ought not to be astonished at seeing 

 some botanists look upon trees as so many beings, the 

 life of which is unlimited, and many of which, born amid 

 the debris of former cataclysms, still vegetate full of sap 

 and vigour. 



De CandoUe, Avho puts forward this opinion, admitting 

 the hypothesis of Gaudichaud, considers the giants of our 

 forests as so many aggregates of individuals, or buds, an- 

 nually succeeding on the stem, which thus represents a 

 living soil. This stem grows on century after century, and 

 only succumbs by accident, as when struck by lightning, 

 or when its suckers cannot find nutritive juices. 



Thus then, we repeat, actual science demonstrates Avhat 

 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 



^ The army of Cortez was composed of six hundred Spanish foot-soldiers, 

 forty hor.semen, and nine small pieces of artillery. — Ilist. Gen. des Voy. t. xii. 

 p. 389. According to M. Schacht, the calculations of Adanson are liable to the 

 charge of inexactness on account of the rapidity with which this tree grows. In 

 forty years a baobab at Santa Cruz gained a circumference of about ten feet 

 four inches. 



