TORTUS. HEDERA. 89 



263. T. NODOSA. Dry waste places, not common. B. Castle 

 hills. — D. Plentiful in fields near Oxford. Holy Island, on the 

 Heugh and Castle rock. June. 



264. Adoxamoschatellina. Damp shaded places. B. Dunglas 

 dean. Rev. A. Baird. Sisterpath dean ; and by the Pease burn 

 above and below the forester's house: Blackburn-rigg dean, J. Hardy. 

 In the wood above the Retreat. — R. Banks of the Tweed above 

 Roxburgh ; and near St. Boswells, Dr. F. Douglas. — D. Banks of 

 the Till opposite Twizel-castle. April. 



265. IIedera helix. Don Gard. Diet. iii. 391. Cl)e l[l)j) : 

 JStntluootJ. In deans on rocks, and on trees ; and on old walls and 

 towers. In many places Ivy covers the face of the cliffs that front the 

 sea beneath, indifferent to the bitter blast which so often beats against 

 it, and it descends unchanged to within a few feet of high water-mark. 

 Here the Ivy clings close to the surface, creeping along, with its 

 many feet, like a vegetable Julus ; and it is only in our sheltered 

 deans, e. g. in Dunglas and in Twizel denes, where it climbs the 

 loftiest trees, that it throws its tendrils and its limber shoots freely 

 off and abroad, as if the plant were conscious of the protection they 

 would receive from their position : 



" Yet while they strangle a fair growth, they bring 

 For recompense, their own perennial power," 



and become the most effective ornament to the scenery. It sometimes 

 hangs its long graceful tresses down the face of dripping scaurs ; and 

 again it clambers up dry rocks and banks to a considerable height. 

 How great an effect it may thus have in changing plainness to absolute 

 beauty, may be witnessed daily at Castle-hills ; and at the parish 

 churches of Foulden, Lady kirk, and Polwarth. 



We have an " Ivy-wood well" in our district. The name is appa- 

 rently tainted with cockneyism, but the truth is, it has its origin in a 

 time anterior to the introduction of that conceit into our northern 

 parts. It was conferred as early at least as 1275. Raine's N. 

 Durham, p. 1^. The well is situated in a field called "Partan's 

 Butts " near Howburne or Holburn in the parish of Lowick. It was' 

 circular and about 3 feet deep ; but, within the last three or four 

 years, it has been filled up and drained away into a neighbouring 

 ditch. " The well was, and still is, famed for its medicinal qualities ; 

 and Miss Patrick, a lady well stricken in years, and whose family 

 have resided for many generations in Holborn, tells me that her 

 father was cured of a stomach complaint by a draught of it. Within 

 her memory, it was in great request among the humbler classes in the 

 neighbourhood. The water w^as never known to freeze in the severest 

 winter, and was of excessive coldness in summer. I got a draught of 

 it from the mouth of the drain, and found it quite pure and tasteless." 

 — Mr. John Lowrey, in Lit. Aug. 12, 1852. — The well probably 

 derived its reputation from the circumstance that Saint Cuthbert was 

 believed to have drawn water from it. There is a tradition that, at 

 one period, the Saint inhabited a natural cave hard-by, on the 



