CHAP. LIX. ARALIA CEE. #HE/DERA. 1003 
tion of its component parts; some of it remaining in the cup when the 
pores were choked up, and the portion exuded having the appearance of water, 
from its colouring matter having been absorbed by the wood. The ivy, for 
trying this experiment, or for using in any way as a filter, must be newly cut, as 
it loses its filtering properties when quite dry. A decoction of the leaves dyes 
hair black ; and it is.said to form a principal ingredient in the compositions 
sold to prevent hair from turning grey. The leaves of mulberry trees that 
have had ivy round them are said to destroy the silkworms that feed on them ; 
and the juice of the plant,applied to the nostrils, is supposed to cure headachs. 
Many other properties were attributed to this plant by the ancients ; but, for 
medicinal purposes, it appears at present to have fallen into disuse. The 
great use of the ivy, in modern times, is as an ornamental shrub. When the 
geometrical style of gardening prevailed, it was much employed to train over 
frames of wire or lattice-work, formed by the wire-worker or joiner into 
architectural or sculptural shapes; arbours, colonnades, and the figures of 
men and animals, being much more rapidly produced in this manner, than by 
the slow growth of the yew or the box. At present, forms of this kind are 
no longer in use; but a plant of ivy trained tu a pole, and allowed to branch 
out at its summit, forms a very striking object in small gardens. For covering 
naked walls, rocks, or ruins, or communicating an evergreen rural appearance 
to any part of a town or suburban garden, no plant whatever equals the ivy; 
though, in situations subject to the smoke of coal, it is apt to get naked 
below, and requires to be partially cut down, or to have young plants planted at 
the root of the old ones, to fill up the naked places, every four or five years. 
A very singular effect produced by ivy occurs in the approach road to 
Warwick Castle. The road is cut through a solid bed of sandstone rock ; 
and its sides are, in some places, upwards of 12 ft. high, if we recollect 
rightly, and quite perpendicular and smooth. Ivy has been planted on the 
upper surface of the ground, which forms the summit of these perpendicular 
walls of rock, in order, as it would appear, that it might creep down and 
cover their face. Instead of creeping, however, the ivy has grown over, with- 
out attaching itself; and its long, pendulous, matted shoots, which, in 1831, 
not only reached the approach road, but actually trailed on it, waving to and 
fro with the wind, might be compared to an immense sheet of water falling 
over a perpendicular rock. Over chalk cliffs, ivy sometimes hangs down in 
perpendicular shoots from the surface ; but, from the numerous interstices in 
the chalk, it is generally able occasionally to attach itself; and hence it appears 
in varied tufts and festoons, which, in old chalk-pits, as, for example, at 
Ingress Park, near Greenhithe, have an effect that is at once strikingly beau- 
tiful and picturesque. In close shrubberies, in small gardens, or even in 
large ones, where neither grass nor any other green plant will grow on the 
surface, the ivy forms a clothing of perpetual verdure. Trained against es- 
paliers, latticework, iron hurdles, or wire frames, it forms, in a very short 
time, most beautiful evergreen walls, or hedges, for the shelter or separation of 
flower-gardens. In short, there is no evergreen shrub capable of being applied 
to so many important uses as the common ivy; and no garden (in a climate 
where it will stand the open air), whether large or small, can dispense with it. 
About London, it is raised in immense quantities in pots, and trained to the 
height of from 6 ft. to] 2 ft. on stakes ; so that, at any season of the year, a hedge 
may be formed of it, or a naked space covered with it, at an incredibly short 
notice. In the streets of London, a house may be built from the foundations in 
the course of three or four weeks ; and, by placing pots of ivy in the balconies 
of the different windows, the whole front, in one day, may be covered with 
evergreen leaves as effectually as if it were an old building, in a secluded 
rural situation. One valuable use to which the ivy may be applied in street 
houses in towns is, to form external framings to the windows instead of archi- 
traves. In the interminable lines of naked windows in the monotonous brick 
houses built about 50 years ago, which form the majority of the London 
streets at the west end of the town, the ivy affords a resource which any 
