THE IVY. 



distinction between them is to be found in the form of the young fruit, which in 

 Araliaceas invariably consists of three to five or more carpels, but in Umbellifereaj 

 consists always of two carpels. In the order Araliacece there are not many plants 

 of great importance, but a few deserve mention as relatives of our evergreen Ivy, 

 which is certainly the most important of them all. Panax quinquefolium, a native 

 of Chinese Tartary and North America, was once celebrated as furnishing the well- 

 known drug called Ginseng, the highly extolled properties of which are now 

 believed to have no existence except in the imagination of the Chinese, and the 

 plant itself has ceased to be a favourite in our gardens. 



The characters of Hedera are calyx with an elevated or toothed edge ; petals 

 five or ten, not calyptrate, and cohering ; stamens five to ten, converging or 

 consolidated ; the berry five or ten celled. 



How many species of ivy are known to botanists? The " English Cyclo- 

 paedia" says " there are fifty species of ivy enumerated, all of which are of easy 

 culture." * It will be found a difficult matter to establish three species ; and it is 

 highly probable that all known ivies may be reduced to two. 2 The standard authors 

 on British Botany, such as Withering, Smith, Deakin, Hooker, and others, 

 describe Hedera helix, the wild ivy of Britain, as a matter of course ; but have 

 little to say about its peculiarities of growth or its extraordinary sportiveness. 

 Bentham adds to his excellent but brief description, that " several varieties are in 

 cultivation, differing chiefly in the more or less divided leaves ; and one, with 

 yellow berries, introduced from the continent, has become almost wild in some 

 parts of southern and western England." 3 Dr. J. D. Hooker, in his " Student's 

 Flora," speaks of its leaves as " very variable," and indicates, without distinctly 

 stating his opinion, that the "so-called Irish ivy, ... a doubtful native of 

 Ireland," is not specifically distinct from H. helix. Considering that some of the 

 variegated -leaved varieties are referred to by Pliny as being in cultivation in his 

 time, we might expect to find mention of them in the more copious of our older 

 works on gardening, but such is not the case. Parkinson's " Paradisus 

 Terrestris," published 1629, contains no reference to the plant at all, although we 

 find "Hedera virgmiana" in the index, this being the well-known deciduous 

 "Virginian creeper," the Ampelopsis hederacea of modern botanists. Miller's 

 description is quite worthy of him. He points out the distinction between the 



1 "Natural History" section, article HEDERA. 



3 T. umbellifera of Amboyna is intentionally ignored. 



3 " Illustrated Handbook of the British Flora," 374. 



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