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 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 existence 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 Tascodium, at Sacramento, and a Sequoïa 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 with a Rhizome.—Vegetable species of]