& 



THE IVY. 



off from the assistance of its proper roots and compelled to derive its sus- 

 tenance from the bark of the tree alone. It cannot, therefore, at present 

 be affirmed that the plant is. parasitical, although we incline to the belief 

 that it is. 



Two more questions, as important as they are interesting, now present 

 themselves. Does the ivy injure the edifice to which it is attached ? It all 

 depends. As a rule it tends to injury, but that tendency is often more than 

 balanced by its protecting power. The insinuation of its stem- roots will, in 

 time, loosen the joints of brickwork or masonry, but this operation proceeds 

 so slowly as to be practically unimportant. A frail structure will of necessity 

 suffer sooner than a stout one ; and, as we find the ivy holding hard to walls 

 which it has adorned for a thousand years or more, it must not be credited with 

 any terribly destructive power. On the other hand, it protects the wall to which 

 it clings by keeping it dry. A wall originally damp becomes drier when it is 

 clothed with ivy, for the leaves shoot off the rain, and the stem-roots suck the 

 moisture from the fabric to feed the plant. 



In a paper by the present writer on the habits of the Ivy, published in the 

 first volume of the " Floral World," 1 an account was given of a systematic 

 inquiry into the effects of ivy on the walls of churches. Many persons competent 

 to afford evidence on the subject clergymen, churchwardens, parish clerks, and 

 others were interrogated, and their collective evidence amounted to this, that 

 instances of injury to churches by the attachment of ivy might be found, but, upon 

 the whole, the harm done was trifling, and the shelter afforded was eminently 

 beneficial, and mare than compensated, for in some cases exposed walls would 

 decay faster through the action of the weather than they would if sheltered and 

 bitten by ivy. A rural dean, giving evidence in this case, said: " Nothing so 

 effectually keeps a building dry as ivy ; for, after the heaviest rain, the wall to 

 which it adheres will be found quite dry, the leaves acting as a weather-board, 

 or vertical tiling, to throw every drop of rain away from it. Its exuberant and 

 web-like roots bind everything together with which they come in contact with such 

 a firm and intricate lace- work, that not a single stone can be removed from its 

 position without first tearing away its protecting safeguard." This holding of the 

 old fabric together may be of further importance in the case of venerable old 

 churches on which restorers have cast their Vandalic and Iconoclastic eyes ; 



f 



4 



" Floral World," 1858, p. 36. 



