VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 247 



When the sinking buttress, and moulding tower 



Seem only the spectres of former power, 



Then the Ivy clusters round the wall, 



And for tapestry hangs in the moss-grown hall. 



Striving in beauty and youth to dress 



The desolate place in its loneliness." 



Romance of Nature. 



The Ivy lives to a great age, if we may judge from the 

 specimens that overrun some of the oldest edifices of Europe, 

 which are said to have been covered with it for centuries, 

 and where the main stems are seen nearly as large as the 

 trunk of a middle sized tree. 



" Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed, 

 And nations have scattered been ; 

 But the stout old Ivy shall never fade 

 From its hale and hearty green ; 

 The brave old plant in its lonely days. 

 Shall fatten upon the past ; 

 For the stateliest building man can raise, 

 Is the Ivy's food at last." 



The Ivy is not a native of America ; nor is it by any 

 means a very common plant in our gardens, though we 

 know of no apology for the apparent neglect of so beautiful 

 a climber. It is hardy south of the latitude of 42°, and we 

 have seen it thriving in great luxuriance as far north as 

 Hyde Park, on the Hudson, 80 miles above New- York. One 

 of the most beautiful growths of this plant, which has ever 

 met our eyes, is that upon the old mansion in the Botanic 

 Garden at Philadelphia, built by the elder Bartram. That 

 picturesque and quaint stone building is beautifully overrun 

 by the most superb mantle of Ivy, that no one who has once 

 seen can fail to remember with admiration. The dark 

 gray of the stone-work is finely opposed by the rich verdure 

 of the plant, which falls away in openings here and there, 

 around the windows, and elsewhere. It never thrives well 



