CHAP. LIX. AJSALIA'CE^E. //E'DERA. 1003 



tion of its component parts ; some of it remaining in the cup when the 

 pores were choked up, and the portion exuded having the appearance of water, 

 from its colouring matter having been absorbed by the wood. The ivy, for 

 trying this experiment, or for using in any way as a filter, must be newly cut, as 

 it loses its filtering properties when quite dry. A decoction of the leaves dyes 

 hair black ; and it is said to form a principal ingredient in the compositions 

 sold to prevent hair from turning grey. The leaves of mulberry trees that 

 have had ivy round them are said to destroy the silkworms that feed on them ; 

 and the juice of the plant,applied to the nostrils, is supposed to cure headachs. 

 Many other properties were attributed to this plant by the ancients ; but, for 

 medicinal purposes, it appears at present to have fallen into disuse. The 

 great use of the ivy, in modern times, is as an ornamental shrub. When the 

 geometrical style of gardening prevailed, it was much employed to train over 

 frames of wire or lattice-work, formed by the wire-worker or joiner into 

 architectural or sculptural shapes ; arbours, colonnades, and the figures of 

 men and animals, being much more rapidly produced in this manner, than by 

 the slow growth of the yew or the box. At present, forms of this kind are 

 no longer in use ; but a 'plant of ivy trained to a pole, and allowed to branch 

 out at its summit, forms a very striking object in small gardens. For covering 

 naked walls, rocks, or ruins, or communicating an evergreen rural appearance 

 to any part of a town or suburban garden, no plant whatever equals the ivy ; 

 though, in situations subject to the smoke of coal, it is apt to get naked 

 below, and requires to be partially cut down, or to have young plants planted at 

 the root of the old ones, to fill up the naked places, every four or five years. 

 A very singular effect produced by ivy occurs in the approach road to 

 Warwick Castle. The road is cut through a solid bed of sandstone rock ; 

 and its sides are, in some places, upwards of 12 ft. high, if we recollect 

 rightly, and quite perpendicular and smooth. Ivy has been planted on the 

 upper surface of the ground, which forms the summit of these perpendicular 

 walls of rock, in order, as it would appear, that it might creep down and 

 cover their face. Instead of creeping, however, the ivy has grown over, with- 

 out attaching itself; and its long, pendulous, matted shoots, which, in 1831, 

 not only reached the approach road, but actually trailed on it, waving to and 

 fro with the wind, might be compared to an immense sheet of water falling 

 over a perpendicular rock. Over chalk cliffs, ivy sometimes hangs down in 

 perpendicular shoots from the surface ; but, from the numerous interstices in 

 the chalk, it is generally able occasionally to attach itself; and hence it appears 

 in varied tufts and festoons, which, in old chalk-pits, as, for example, at 

 Ingress Park, near Greenhithe, have an effect that is at once strikingly beau- 

 tiful and picturesque. In close shrubberies, in small gardens, or even in 

 large ones, where neither grass nor any other green plant will grow on the 

 surface, the ivy forms a clothing of perpetual verdure. Trained against es- 

 paliers, latticework, iron hurdles, or wire frames, it forms, in a very short 

 time, most beautiful evergreen walls, or hedges, for the shelter or separation of 

 flower-gardens. In short, there is no evergreen shrub capable of being applied 

 to so many important uses as the common ivy ; and no garden (in a climate 

 where it will stand the open air), whether large or small, can dispense with it. 

 About London, it is raised in immense quantities in pots, and trained to the 

 height of from 6 ft. to] -2 ft. on stakes ; so that, at any season of the year, a hedge 

 may be formed of it, or a naked space covered with it, at an incredibly short 

 notice. In the streets of London, a house may be built from the foundations in 

 the course of three or four weeks ; and, by placing pots of ivy in the balconies 

 of the different windows, the whole front, in one day, may be covered with 

 evergreen leaves as effectually as if it were an old building, in a secluded 

 rural situation. One valuable use to which the ivy may be applied in street 

 houses in towns is, to form external framings to the windows instead of archi- 

 traves. In the interminable lines of naked windows in the monotonous brick 

 houses built about 50 years ago, which form the majority of the London 

 streets at the west end of the town, the ivy affords a resource which any 



