INTRODUCTION. 25 



there where her various creations combine 

 spontaneously, and without restraint. 



The means by which these plants raise 

 themselves up, so as to offer their flowers to 

 the sun, are as various as they are curious, 

 and they seldom blossom whilst trailing on 

 the ground. The ivy and bignonia ascend 

 by the help of little fibres, which fix them- 

 selves to the bark of trees or crevices in walls 

 so tightly, as to render their disengagement 

 a difficult thing to be accomplished without 

 injury to the trunk or building they are 

 attached to. The honey-suckle, like the hop, 

 twines itself spirally around the trunk or 

 branches of trees, and often clasps them so 

 closely, as to make an impression on the 

 hardest timber. Others, as the vine and 

 passion-flower, rear themselves by means of 

 corkscrew tendrils, which hold so fast, that 

 the strongest winds seldom disunite them from 

 their support. Some plants climb by means 

 of a hook in their leaf-stalk, or have a kind of 

 vegetable hand given them, by which they 

 are assisted in mounting, as the pea and 

 several others. 



To return from this digression. — The 

 sombre, gloom}' walk of yew, cypress, or holly, 

 should lead to the spot from which there is 

 the most beautiful prospect, or to the gay 



