XII. 



IVY IN THE COPSE. 



SEE what a beautiful creeping spray of ivy 

 dark green, with russet veins from the 

 ground beneath the copse here ! How close 

 it keeps to the earth ! how exquisitely the 

 leaves fit in with one another, like a living 

 mosaic ! That is why the ivy-leaf is shaped 

 as we know it, with re-entrant angles, very 

 abrupt and deep-lobed. The plant, as a 

 whole, crawls snake- like over the ground 

 in shady spots, or climbs up the face of 

 stony cliffs, or mantles walls and ruins, or 

 clambers boldly over the trunks of trees 

 which last, though its most conspicuous, 

 is not by any means its commonest or most 

 natural situation. It is a haunter of the 



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