COMMON IVY. 411 



and has become wild in certain localities further north; it 

 has similar habits to the former. 



(c) The common Ivy (Hedera Helix, L.) is widely distributed 

 and extends over the milder parts of Europe, Northern Asia, 

 into India and Japan, and North Africa. It climbs trees, rocks 

 and walls by means of its adhesive rootlets, which however 

 suck no nutriment from the host on which it is growing, but 

 merely support the ivy. The smaller forest variety is said not 

 to flower, and sometimes covers the soil of a forest. Ivy grows 

 away from the light, except its blossoming shoots, which have 

 undivided leaves and grow towards the light. Matthieu* 

 considers ivy hurtful to forest trees by interfering with the 

 passage of the sap, and by covering the crowns of trees with 

 its foliage, and it certainly, at times, like the honeysuckle, 

 constricts oak and other saplings and poles. The ivy, 

 however, rarely ascends higher than the middle of the crown 

 of a growing tree, and may be useful in preventing the forma- 

 tion of epicormic branches on standards. It dries the surface 

 of walls on which it is growing, and also the soil when creeping 

 over it. Ivy sometimes attains very large dimensions, a plant 

 at Montpellier being 450 years old and 9| feet in girth. 



(d) Bindweed (Convolvulus, L.) : C. arvensis, L., chiefly 

 found in fields and waste places ; C. sepium, L., in hedges and 

 thickets. Both species are extremely troublesome in nurseries 

 and in osier beds, as their deeply seated rhizomes fill the 

 ground, and their shoots twine round and bear down the young 

 plants. 



To deal with these pests, the ground when bare should be 

 trenched, and the soft whitish rhizomes of the bindweed 

 collected and burned. It is difficult to do this thoroughly, as 

 the roots go down to 18 inches in the soil. 



Black bindweed (Polygonum Convolvulus, L.) is chiefly 

 found in fields and waste places, and has similar habits to the 

 above. It is however an annual plant and injurious only in 

 nurseries. 



(e) Wild hop (Humulus Lupulus, L.). The hop is found in 

 damp places in lowlands ; it twines from right to left up 

 woody plants and drags them down. The rootstock alone is 



* Flore forestiere, 1897, p. 200. 



