PHYSIOLOGY. 935 
. § 301. Gosia 
The duration of life differs greatly in different 
plants. Some species of boletus only require a few 
hours to unfold themselves, and as soon again de- 
cay. Several fungi live only a. few days, others 
weeks and months. Annual plants live three, four, 
or at the utmost eight months. Biennial plants con- 
tinue sixteen, eighteen, and even four and twenty 
months alive. Many herbaceous plants grow a few 
years only, but more a long series of years. We 
have some shrubs and trees which can live eight, 
ten, a hundred, even a thousand years. With us 
the oak and lime-tree come to the greatest age. But 
the trees which in our globe in general grow oldest, 
are no doubt the Adansonia digitata, (§ 263); the 
Pinus cedrus, and the different species of palm. ‘The 
_ Adansonia probably lives longest of all, as its age 
is computed to be one, if not many, thousand years. 
VI. BIs- 
