48 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



to the wall, they may in these untoward circumstances act 

 as true roots, drawing sufficient moisture from the wall, 

 a mossy old tree-trunk and from the air, orchid fashion, 

 to enable the plant to live. However this may be, the 

 cutting off of direct access to the ground does affect the 

 vitality, and ultimately destroys the life of the plant. The 

 delay in the process may be more or less, but symptoms 

 of decay presently appear and the ivy ultimately dies. No 

 one can have wandered much in woodland or copse without 

 encountering trees clothed in a brown wrapping of dead ivy 

 leaves, the result of the woodman's billhook having severed 

 these ivy stems near the ground. 



Ivy is often held to be obviously injurious to some fine 

 old tree that, ivy-clad, is showing at last symptoms of decay. 

 In the course of many years the ivy has attained to great 

 luxuriance of growth, and has enclosed the trunk and 

 taken possession of the larger branches ; but there is in 

 this no proof that the monarch of the forest, at last yielding 

 to the inevitable law of Nature, has had its end hastened 

 by its uninvited guest. When mischief arises is where 

 young trees, having yet much growth to make, suffer 

 from the constriction of the encircling stems. 



Bacchus is ordinarily ivy-crowned ; while he was yet 

 an infant he was concealed from the wrath of Juno beneath 

 sprays of ivy, and the plant was dedicated to him in con- 

 sequence. It grows very freely in Greece and Asia Minor, 

 and is abundant at Nyssa, the early home of Bacchus. At 

 the ancient Greek marriage rite the priest presented the 

 young couple in the temple with an ivy branch, a symbol 

 of the binding tie upon which they had entered. A crown 

 of ivy was bestowed also on Apollo, and on the poets, his 



