

ivy BUSH. 187 



' Mosses, and reverend ivies serpentine 



That wreathe your odorous arms round beech and pine. 

 And, climbing, crown their crest." 



AVjrn:.\'s Garcilasso. 



Virgil speaks of the black Ivy as an indication of a 

 i-old soil. Martyn observes in a note, that this poet, and 

 many other ancient authors, speak of another plant, called 

 White Ivy, which is quite unknown to us. Tournefort 

 says, that in passing through the herb market at Con- 

 stantinople, he lx)ught some of the seeds of the Yellow- 

 fruited Ivy, which is as common there as the common 

 Ivy is at Paris. " Pliny informs us," continues he, 

 " that it was the Golden -fruited Ivy which was conse- 

 crated to Bacchus, and destined to crown the poets : the 

 leaves, as this author remarks, are of a livelier green 

 than those of the common Ivy, and the bunches of gold- 

 coloured berries gi\ e it a peculiar brilliancy." In another 

 passage he observes, that Pliny, who gave to this Ivy 

 the name of the Golden-fruited, had not seen the plant, 

 but obtained his information from Theophrastus and 

 Dioscorides. It appears to be the same which was gene- 

 rally called the White Ivy. " For that which they call 

 the Ivy of Thrace," observes Tournefort, " we saw several 

 of these plants on the coast of the Black Sea ; and it is 

 not surprising that the Bacchantes should fonnerlv have 

 made use of them to adorn their heads or their thvrses, 

 since all Thrace is covered with these plants*." 



Tournefort appears to consider the Ivy of the ancients 

 only as a variety of the Common Iw. 



A heavy charge indeed may be made against a poet of 



* Tournefort's Travels, vol. ii. p. '2\G. 



