Continent Introductio", Waldseemüller noted that the earth is divided into four parts, Europe, Asia, Africa and the fourth part, which he named "America" after Amerigo Vespucci's first name. On the map, the word "America" was placed on part of South America. From the 16th century the English noun "continent" was derived from the term "continent land", meaning continuous or connected land and translated from the Latin "terra continens". The noun was used to mean "a connected or continuous tract of land" or mainland. It was not applied only to very large areas of land—in the 17th century, references were made to
Largest organisms over . The largest organism in the world, according to mass, is the aspen tree whose colonies of clones can grow up to five miles long. The largest such colony is Pando, in the Fishlake National Forest in Utah. Another form of flowering plant that rivals Pando as the largest organism on earth in breadth, if not mass, is the giant marine plant, "Posidonia oceanica", discovered in the Mediterranean near the Balearic Islands, Spain. Its length is about . It may also be the oldest living organism in the world, with an estimated age of 100,000 years. Green algae are