of an aged Ash Tree. 331 



of small dimensions, mere poles, are frequently to be seen 

 clogged with ivy almost to suffocation, and their growth and 

 vigour appear to be impaired accordingly. 



— ! — 



and he has " moralised this spectacle " into a " simile " replete with 

 instruction " of great pith and moment;" which the reader will find in 

 his poem on Retirement, whence the lines above are taken. 



An instance of the fact which these lines describe, also, exists hard by 

 the office of this Magazine. Mr. Loudon, in 1824, planted, in a shrubbery 

 in his garden, a cherry tree, and at its foot a honeysuckle : both have since 

 grown, and still are growing, together. The stem of the honeysuckle is 

 spirally coiled about the stem of the cherry tree ; and so much straitened 

 into its bark and wood, as to be, in some of the coils, not only not pro- 

 minent or in the least relief, but is even beneath the surface of the bark of 

 the cherry tree, from the bark of the cherry tree's having risen up on each 

 side of the constriction in the manner the ash tree's wood and bark had 

 risen above the constricting branches of the ivy. The result of the pro- 

 gressive strangulation is, in conjunction with the cherry tree's being too 

 much invaded by the shrubs about it, that, although it has been planted 

 nine years, the stem of the cherry tree, at 3 in. from the ground, does not 

 measure quite 9 in. in circumference ; and the honeysuckle, at the same 

 place, not more than 3 in. in circumference. 



As another instance, I may mention that, in the old botanic garden at Bury 

 St. Edmunds, an individual, of some little age, of that most interesting plant 

 the Periploca grae'cai., whose pertinacity in twining is meant to be expressed 

 in the word Periploca, was implanted at the foot of a young, healthy, and 

 vigorously growing western plane tree (Platanus occidentals L.). Both 

 grew rapidly; and, in three or four years, the Periploca grae v ca had in- 

 sculptured a deep and deforming spiral groove in the plane tree's trunk, 

 from near the ground to the setting off of the spreading branches which 

 form the umbrageous head of this large-leaved pleasing species of tree. I 

 say a deforming groove, because, in the spaces between the coils of the 

 groove, the plane tree's trunk had swollen out, and so had been deprived 

 of that graceful tapering form which otherwise would have accrued to it* 

 The stem of the Periploca grae v ca was, in the end, unless I am mistaken, 

 broken transversely in two by the resistless increase in the diameter of 

 the young plane tree's growing trunk. 



On the instances of this natural insculpturing, as it may be called, which 

 the woods, groves, and hedgerows occasionally supply, it may be noticed 

 that they are usually appropriated and much prized by the tasteful in rustic 

 matters, as eligible for walking-sticks, whip-handles, &c. These, it would 

 appear, will oftener occur in such kinds of wood as maple, elm, ash, and 

 beech : to these kinds may be added birch and hazel, and probably any 

 other species of wood with which the twining shrub may happen to grow 

 in contact. In gardens, the result seems effectible on any tree or shrub 

 to which we may please to appose the twining shrub. 



True, then, although it is, as shown above, that twining shrubs effect 

 more or less of injurious strangulation on the stems, boughs, and branches 

 of the trees and shrubs they entwine, it is also true that they must ever be 

 present in every well-furnished tastefully decorated flower-garden. No 

 plants are more elegant, graceful, ornamental : and the notable flexibility 

 of their twining shoots, while these are young and tender, allows us to 

 lead them whither we will, 



" To deck the wall or weave the bower." Cotton. 



For such purposes of decoration, climbers will be added : these climb by 



