BOOK XVI. Lxii. 146-151 



similarly occurs in the black variety. Alsn one kind 

 has a black seed and anothcr a seed of the coloiir of 

 saffron ; the latter ivy is used by poets for thcir 

 wreaths, and its leaves are not so dark in colour; 

 some people call it Nysian ivy and others Bacchic 

 ivy, and it has the largest clusters of all the black 

 ivies. Some people among the Grecks also make two 

 classes of this variety, depending on the colour of the 

 berries — red-berry ivy and golden-fruit ivy. 



But it is the heUx which has most varieties of all, Theheiix, 

 as it differs very greatly in leaf. The leaves are small istics arut 

 and angular and of a rather elegant shape, whereas ^'a'''*'»^*' 

 those of the remaining kinds are plain and simple. 

 It differs also in the distance between the joints, 

 but particularly in its infertiUty, as it does not bear 

 any fruit. Some people think that this is a matter 

 of age and not of kind, and that the plant begins 

 as a helix and becomes an ivy when it gets old. 

 This is seen to be a clear mistake on their part, 

 inasmuch as we find several more kinds of helix, but 

 three that are most noticeable — the grass-green heUx 

 which is the commonest, a second kind with a white 

 leaf, and a third kind with a variegated leaf, which is 

 called Thracian ivy. Moreover there is a grass-ivy 

 with rather narrow and symmetricaUy arranged and 

 rather thickly growing leaves, and in another variety 

 aU these points are different ; also in the variegated 

 ivy one variety has narrower leaves arranged in a 

 similar way and clustering more thickly, and another 

 variety entirely lacking these features, and also the 

 lea,ves are either larger or smaUer, and diifer in the 

 arrangeraent of their markings ; and in the white 

 ivy in some cases the leaves are whiter than in others. 

 The grass-green ivy grows the longest shoots ; but 



485 



