332 



THE IVY. 



HEDERA HELIX. 



Natural Order AKALIACEJE. 

 Class PENTANDRIA. Order MON OGYNIA. 



THE Ivy is a tree of very ancient repute, occupying a pro- 

 minent place in the Mythology of the Greeks and Eomans, 

 and applied to purposes which were deemed the most 

 honourable. The warrior-god Bacchus had his brows and 

 spear decked with Ivy ; the people of Thrace adorned 

 their armour with the foliage of the same tree ; and an Ivy 

 crown was the highest prize that was awarded to a success- 

 ful poet. The Grecian priests presented newly-married 

 couples with a wreath of Ivy, as a symbol of the closeness 

 of the tie which ought to bind them together ; and it con- 

 tinues a favourite emblem of constancy among the moderns. 

 Owing to a property which it is supposed to possess, of 

 absorbing nourishment, by means of its root-like tendrils, 

 from the trees to which it clings, some consider its friend- 

 ship not strictly disinterested : 



" He was 



The Ivy which had hid my princely trunk, 

 And suck'd my verdure out." 



With many the Ivy is the tree peculiarly dedicated to 

 gloom : its foliage is heavy, and of a sombre hue ; it shows 

 its flowers and strives to be as gay as it can when almost 

 every other tree has finished its summer course; it loves 

 to creep over sepulchres and ruined buildings, as even 

 Pliny has remarked ; it courts retirement and the shade, 

 and if it does sometimes grow on a sunny bank, it seems 

 sickly and ill at ease, rarely rising from the ground unless 

 it can avail itself of the support afforded by some decaying 

 tree that has little foliage of its own. But I am by 

 no means disposed to allow that the Ivy deserves this 



