As things rise in the scale of being the distance between birth and maturity widens.

Mollusks are born close up to their full estate, sandflies mature in two days, butterflies in two weeks, humming-birds in as many months.

But let no man think the vast all-shadowing redwood trees of California grew in a mushroomic night.
When the seed first thrust its rootlets down into the soil and its plumule up to the sunshine it entered upon a long career.

Saved by hope after 800 years of growth it gives shade to myriads of birds; beams for lath and loom and ship in the service of industry; lends pen and pencil to poet and artist in the service of beauty; through desk and pew enters into man's intellectual and moral life; through instruments of convenience strengthens the sweet amenities of the home; working, it also waited and is saved by hope.
Man stands at the very summit of creation.

He is at the head of all that creep and swim and walk and fly.