■346 THE IVY FAMILY. 



woody Stem. The two plants adverted to are the only British 

 examples, and both are found near Manchester. 



1. An evergreen shrub, with numerous slender and flexible branches, 



plentifully clothed with shining foliage, and yielding, when 

 bruised, a strong and peculiar smell. Sometimes it trails 

 weakly upon the ground, and has small, angular, three or five- 

 lobed leaves, which are often prettily variegated. At other 

 times it ascends trees, rocks, or buildings, climbing to a great 

 height by means of root-like suckers, which are thrown out 

 abundantly at the sides of the stems. (Fig. 181.) As soon as 

 it has reached the top of its support, the stems shorten, and 

 become woody, forming large bushy heads, and producing 

 flowers and fruit. The leaves are now in scarcely a single 

 instance angular, but ovate, retaining, however, the charac- 

 teristic gloss, and with long petioles. The flowers are borne 

 in a short raceme of nearly globular umbels ; the petals five, 

 broad and short, and seated, with the five stamens, on the large 

 round ovary, which becomes a black berry, containing two to 

 five seeds Common I\Tf . 



2. A delicate herbaceous plant ; radical leaves, on long stalks, twice 



or thrice ternate, with broad, deeply three-lobed segments ; 

 upper leaves only two, on short stalks, and simply ternate ; 

 stem solitary, three or four inches high, with five little green 

 flowers in a terminal head, one looking right up to the zenith, 

 and the others placed back to back and directed to the four 

 points of the compass, like the four dials of many public clocks. 

 The terminal flower has four petals and eight stamens; the 

 lateral ones have five petals and ten stamens. Koot-stalk 

 covered with imbricated white scales, the remains of old leaf- 

 stalks MuSK-ROOT. 



HABITATS AND LOCALITIES. 

 1. Common Ivy — {Hedera Helix.) 

 Common everywhere, creeping on the ground in woods and upon 

 hedgcbanks ; running up young trees, like a vegetable centipede, and 

 forming large bushes in the upper portion, and if the boughs spread 

 horizontally over banks of rivers, sitting upon them, balanced elegantly, 

 like birds ; at other times mantling rocks and buildings with a per- 

 manent and adhesive tapestry. 



" Creeping where no life is seen, 

 A rare old plant is the ivy green." 



The finest ivy-tree I am aware of, in this neighbourhood, clambers 



