VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 313 



Climbing plants may be classed among the adventitious 

 beauties of trees. Who has nr>t often witnessed with 

 delight in our native forests, the striking beauty of a noble 

 tree, the old trunk and fantastic branches of which were 

 enwreathed with the luxuriant und pliant shoots and rich 

 foliage of some beautiful vine, clothing even its decayed 

 limbs with verdure, and hanging down in gay festoons or 

 loose negligent masses, waving to and fro in the air. The 

 European Ivy {Hedei^a Helix) is certainly one of the 

 finest, if not the very finest climbing plant (or more 

 properly, creeping vine, for by means oi its little fibres or 

 rootlets on the stems, it will attach itself to trees, walks, 

 or any other substance), with which we are acquainted. 

 It possesses not only very fine dark green palmated foliage 

 in great abundance, but the foliage has that agreeable 

 property of being evergreen, — which, while it enhances 

 its value tenfold, is at the same time so rare among vines. 

 The yellow flowers of the Ivy are great favorites with 

 bees, from their honied sweetness ; they open in autumn, 

 and the berries ripen in the spring. When planted at the 

 root of a tree, it will often, if the head is not too thickly 

 clad with branches, ascend to the very topmost limbs ; 

 and its dark green foliage, wreathing itself about the old 

 and furrowed trunk, and hanging in careless drapery from 

 the lower branches, adds greatly to the elegance of even 

 the most admirable tree. Spenser describes the appear- 

 ance of the Ivy growing to the tops of the trees, 



" Emongst the rest, the clamb'ring Ivie grew, 

 Knitting his wanton arms with grasping hold, 

 Lest that the poplar happely should renew 

 Her brother's strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold 

 With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew, 

 And paint with pallid green her buds of gold." 



