CORNER— CORNEL TRIBE 87 



summer beauty, but soften the sterile aspect of the winter landscape, and 

 give to the island a perpetual greenness. Nor is the luxuriance of the plant 

 to be seen on the trees only : wayside walls, and even sea-rocks, are enriched 

 by its verdure ; and a mile or two out of the town of St. Heliers there arc 

 cliff's against whose bases the waves dash wildly, yet whose slopes and sum- 

 mits are decked with evergreen masses of leaves, and which seem to a casual 

 observer to be some ancient ruins, clad in the mantle which so often hides 

 the time-rent wall. 



Sometimes our Ivy wreath twines into the darkness of some chasm in a 

 building, becoming paler tinted as it recedes further from the light of day. 

 We have seen an Ivy branch so situated, in which all the leaves were of so 

 yellow a tint, that the classic reader might have been reminded by it of the 

 Hcdera pallens — the golden Ivy of Virgil. This plant appears, however, to 

 have been the yellow-berried Ivy, the Hedem cJirysocarpa, which is probably a 

 "\ariety of our common Ivy, with brighter and more yellow leaves. Mr. 

 Dodwell, in his " Travels in Glreece, ' mentions having found a fragment of a 

 vase near Athens, which was ornamented with the Ivy plant in relief, gilt. 

 Most classical botanists consider that the Ivy mentioned in the Idylls of 

 Theocritus was the Hedera h4lix. The Giant or Irish Ivy, H. canariensis, is 

 by some writers considered a distinct species, but most regard it but as a 

 variety. It is a native of Madeira, and not of Ireland. An Ivy of Amboyna 

 {H. umbellifera) is said to furnish a wood scented like rosemary or lavender. 

 Miss Strickland relates that when last the coffin of Queen Catherine Pan- 

 was opened, a wreath of Ivy was found entwining the temples of the royal 

 corpse. A berry which had fallen there and taken root at the time of a 

 previous exhumation had silently, from day to day, woven itself into this 

 green sepulchral coronal, and had wound about the brow where the rich 

 golden hair had once clustered, and where noble thoughts had gathered, and 

 our first Protestant queen lay thus adorned in her lone resting-place. 



Order XL. CORNER— CORNEL TRIBE. 



Sepals 4, attached to the ovary ; petals 4, oblong, broad at the base, 

 inserted into the top of the calyx ; stamens 4, inserted with the petals ; 

 ovaiy 2-celled ; style thread-like ; stigma simple ; fruit a berry-like drupe, 

 with a 2-celled nut ; seeds solitary. This is a small order, consisting chiefly 

 of trees and shrubs inhabiting the temperate regions of Europe, Asia, Africa, 

 and America. It offers little to our gardens besides some of the Cornels, 

 and the Spotted Laurel (Aucuba japdnica), which is a common evergreen plant 

 in Japan. The leaves form the chief beauty of this shrub, as the flowers, 

 which are green without, and purplish-red within, are small and inconspicuous. 



Cornel {Cdrnus). — Calyx of 4 teeth ; petals 4, superior ; stamens 4 ; 

 nut of the fruit with 2 cells and 2 seeds. Name from cornu, a horn, from 

 its hard wood. 



Cornel {Cumus). 



I. Wild Cornel, or Dogwood (C. sau(jumea).~Bi'anches straight ; 

 leaves opposite, egg-shaped j flowers in flat cymes, without involucre. Plant 



