THE IVY. 



Hedera helix. 



Natural Order — Araliace^. 

 Class — Pentandria. Order — Monogynia. 



The Ivy is a tree of very ancient repute, occu- 

 pying a prominent place in the Mythology of the 

 Greeks and Romans, and applied to purposes 

 which v^ere deemed the most honourable. The 

 warrior-god Bacchus had his brows and spear 

 decked with Ivy : the people of Thrace adorned 

 their armour with the foliage of the same tree, 

 and an Ivy crown was the highest prize that was 

 awarded to a successful poet. The Grecian priests 

 presented newly-married couples with a wreath of 

 Ivy, as a symbol of the closeness of the tie which 

 ought to bind them together; and it continues a 

 favourite emblem of constancy among the moderns. 

 Owing to a property, which it is supposed to 

 possess, of absorbing nourishment, by means of 

 its root-like tendrils, from the trees to which 

 it clings, some consider its friendship not strictly 

 disinterested : 



" He was 



The Ivy which had hid my princely trunk, 

 And siick'd my verdure out." 



With many, the l\j is the tree peculiarly de- 

 dicated to gloom ; its foliage is heavy, and of asom- 



