Max Verworn,[71] a physiologist of repute, objected that Weismann had overlooked the occurrence within the organism of a process of partial destruction, and that under certain conditions a complete organ of the infusorian body (the nucleus) dies and is absorbed. Such death of a part, however, is not followed by death of the whole, and as the continuous destruction of some of the cells in our own bodies is not regarded as our death, the criticism of the German physiologist cannot be accepted. It is not only the extremely short-lived microscopic organisms that escape death. Some of the higher plants, which may attain to gigantic size, encounter death only by accidents. There is nothing to be found in the nature of their organisation which would seem to indicate that death is the inevitable or even probable result of their constitutions. The longevity of some trees has long been notorious, as these appear to live for many centuries and to die only when they are overwhelmed by the ravages of a storm or killed by human agency. When the Canary Islands were discovered, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, the early explorers were struck with the gigantic size of a dragon tree which was venerated by the natives as their tutelary deity. The tree stood in a Garden at Orotava in Teneriffe, and even in these early days, its huge trunk contained a gigantic hollow. The tree did not reward the worship of the natives, who were annihilated by the Spaniards, and it survived them for nearly four centuries. At the end of the eighteenth century it was seen by Humboldt,[72] who found that the trunk was forty-five feet in circumference, and who attributed to it a great age because dragon trees grow extremely slowly. Early in the nineteenth century (1819) a furious tempest swept over Orotava and with a gigantic crash nearly a third of the crown of leaves and branches fell on the ground. Notwithstanding this shock, the monster survived for fifty years. Berthelot,[73] who visited it in 1839, described it as follows:—“A dragon tree stood in front of my dwelling, grotesque in form, gigantic in size, which a storm had smitten without overwhelming. Ten men would have much ado to girdle its vast trunk, fifty feet in circumference at the ground. The huge column had a deep cave within it, hollowed by the ages; a rustic porch gave access to the interior, and the lofty dome, although half had been destroyed by a storm, still bore an enormous crown of branches.” [Illustration: FIG. 15.—The Dragon-tree of the villa Orotava.] The famous dragon-tree got more and more damaged, and was finally overthrown by a storm in 1868. A few years after the catastrophe (in 1871) I myself saw the remains of the colossus, lying on the ground as a huge grey mass like some antediluvian monster. No accurate estimate of its age can be formed, but it must have lived several thousand years.