leaf, the
details differ in every species, while in the same species and even in
the same plant, the leaves present minor differences according to the
situation in which they grow.

Since, then, there is so much complex structure in a single leaf, what
must it be in a whole plant? There is a giant sea-weed (Macrocystis),
which has been known to reach a length of 1000 feet, as also do some of
the lianas of tropical forests. These, however, attain no great bulk,
and the most gigantic specimens of the vegetable kingdom yet known are
the Wellingtonia (Sequoia) gigantea, which grows to a height of 450
feet, and the Blue Gum (Eucalyptus) even to 480.

One is apt to look on animal structure as more delicate, and of a higher
order, than that of plants. And so no doubt it is. Yet an animal, even
man himself, will recover from a wound or an operation more rapidly and
more perfectly than a tree.[32]

Trees again derive a special interest from the venerable age they
attain. In some cases, no doubt, the age is more or less mythical, as,
for instance, the Olive of Minerva at Athens, the Oaks mentioned by
Pliny, "which were thought coeval with the world itself," the Fig tree,
"under which the wolf suckled the founder of Rome and his brother,
lasting (as Tacitus calculated) 840 years, putting out new shoots, and
presaging the translation of that empire from the Caesarian line,
happening in Nero's reign."[33] But in other cases the estimates rest on
a surer foundation, and it cannot be doubted that there are trees still
living which were already of considerable size at the time of the
Conquest. The Soma Cypress of Lombardy, which is 120 feet high and 23 in
circumference, is calculated to go back to forty years before the birth
of Christ. Francis the First is said to have driven his sword into it in
despair after the battle of Padua, and Napoleon altered his road over
the Simplon so as to spare it.

Ferdinand and Isabella in 1476 swore to maintain the privileges of the
Biscayans under the old Oak of Guernica. In the Ardennes an Oak cut down
in 1824 contained a funeral urn and some Samnite coins. A writer at the
time drew the conclusion that it must have been already a large tree
when Rome was founded, and though the facts do not warrant this
conclusion, the tree did, no doubt, go back to Pagan times. The great
Yew of Fountains Abbey is said to have sheltered the monks when the
abbey was rebuilt in 1133, and is estimated at an age of