VIL DESCEIPTIVE LIST OF. GARDEN IVIES. 1 



" Many a niglit from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, 

 Did I look on great Orion eloping slowly to the west." 



TENNYSON'S " LOCKSLEY HALL." 



GROUP I. GREEN-LEAVED CLIMBING FORMS OF HEDERA HELIX. 



HELIX, The common wild ivy (syn. Helix minor). This is the commonest 

 form of H. helix as a wild plant in Britain. It is the wild ivy of the woods and way- 

 sides in the midland and eastern districts of England, and the one most frequently 

 met with attached to elm trees in hedgerows. The growth is wiry and elegant, the 

 leaves usually five -angled, the central lobe being sharply cuneiform, and the two 

 lobes forming the base obscure, rarely suppressed. The average length of a mature 

 leaf from the point of the insertion of the stalk to the point of the central lobe is 

 less than one and a half inches, the breadth across the lateral lobes more than one 

 and a half inches. The colour of the leaves is a deep green, with distinctly-marked 

 whitish veins. The five principal veins marking the median line of each of the five 

 lobes is slightly raised above the surface like a thread laid on. In autumn the 

 leaves acquire decisive stains of purplish bronze. This ivy, which may in the loose 

 language of the day be denominated the " species," is an extremely elegant plant, 

 quickly forming useful pyramidal specimens when grown in pots, and answering 



1 The names printed in parentheses are those by which the varieties are best known in 

 gardens and nursery catalogues. 



