380 SYLVA FLORIFERA. 



keep off the fumes of wine. Cato directs 

 that it should be given to cattle when other 

 fodder is scarce ; and we have known it given 

 to sheep with apparent advantage, at a season 

 when the snow had buried other green food. 

 The ivy is, as generally as improperly, 

 styled a parasitical plant. We consider it 

 merely a fixing climber, and that parasitical 

 plants are such, as not only subsist entirely 

 on the juices of the branches of other trees, 

 but which have no situation allotted them on 

 the earth, as the misletoe and several others. 

 The ivy draws its nourishment from the 

 earth, as well as the oak or the elm to which 

 it clings. The filaments which it sends forth 

 from its branches are merely grapples, by 

 which it fixes itself to the uneven part of the 

 bark of trees or stone buildings ; and that it 

 receives no nourishment from these supposed 

 roots is evident* for if the roots which enter 

 the earth be destroyed, the plant will decay 

 notwithstanding the numerous fixtures it has 

 made, but not so when trailing on the earth ; 

 then these filaments become roots like other 

 plants that are propagated by layers, and it 

 can be separated from the parent plant with- 

 out danger. The Bignonia radicans^ Ash- 

 leaved trumpet flower, adheres to buildings and 

 trees by numerous thready fibres in the same 



