222 



The Ivy with the Ancients. — The Ivy was 

 well known to the Greeks and the Romans. Its 

 Greek names were Kisses and Kittos, from Kissos 

 or Cissus — the name of a boy whom Bacchus is said 

 to have changed into this plant. By the Bomans 

 it was called Hedera, which name it still retains. 

 Ovid gives it the very appropriate epithet of" flexi- 

 pes" (Met. X., 99), twiny-footed. Virgil calls it 

 wandering or straggling — " Errantes edoras (Eel. 

 iv., 19). Catullus describes its manner of growth 

 with great beauty of language — 



" As clasping ivy shoots its sprays, 

 Around the tree in wanton maze. '" — Ixi., 3-1. 



Horace gives a simihr representation of it in the 

 following lines : 



More close than ivy girds the lofty oak, 

 With pliant arms adhering. 



And Ovid adds the circumstance of its forming knots 

 by the reflection of its branches, and likewise men- 

 tions its bunches of berries. These berries are well 

 described in the following line : 



" With pallid green the gilded clusters tinge." 



The general hue of the plant is marked by Virgil 

 with different epithets, which some commentators 

 account for by supposing the leaves are meant in 

 one passage and the berries in another, and others 

 by referring to the different species of ivy which the 

 prose author describes. We have first the appella- 

 tion of pale : 



" The scatterd clusters clothed with ivy pale. " — Eel. iii., 39. 



In this place, no doubt, the leaves are intended, as 

 It is said, to clothe the branches. Again, we read : 



"More fair than ivy white. — Eel. vii., .38. 



Thus referring to the variegated varieties now so 

 common, and beautiful enough to justify the com- 

 parison here made use of Horace contrasts the 

 pleasant green of the ivy with the dusky coat of the 

 myrtle in the following lines: 



''That more delights the youthfal spark 

 In ivy green, than myrtle dark. " — Carm. i., 25. 



Homer also describes his heroes as drinking out of 

 a cup made of ivy wood. The beechen cup of Al- 

 cimedon had a lid of ivy carved with grapes : 



" Tha lids are ivy ; grapes in clusters lurk 

 Beneath the carving of the curious work. " 



— Scottish Farmer.] 



Brown's Travels in Columbia.— Whilst pas- 

 sing the Great Klamath Lake, we visited some of 

 the e camprnents of the Klamaths. They are very 

 degraded, and only rank superior to the Diggers of 

 the mountains of California, and are as much infer- 

 ior to the Warm Springs and most other tribes as 

 these are inferior to the highest class of Caucasians. 

 Tiiey were busy laying in one of the staples of their 

 winter's food, the wokas, or seeds of the Nuphar, 



which covered the borders of the lake : and here we 

 had an instance of the truth of the old truism, that 

 " one half of the world does not know how the other 

 half lives. " Many of the men were bringing in 

 canoe loads of the fresh capsules, while others were 

 drying them in heaps ; then, in another place, some 

 squaws were breaking' them up, and separating the 

 husk from the seed with platters wove of tule 

 (Scrpus lacustris. Linn;); whilst, finally, another 

 group of women bagging it and carefully stowing it 

 off for use. When a Klamath squaw gets up on 

 a winter morning, her first duty is to take some of 

 this wokas, stir it up in a platter with a few hot 

 coals (of wood), and so parch it, and then grind it 

 between two stones, when it is ready for use after 

 being mixed with a little water. Sometimes they 

 float the shells of and eat it whole. In this condi- 

 tion it tastes not unlike parched corn, and is said to 

 be very nutritive and strengthening. The Indians 

 say they can travel further on tiiis than any other 

 description of food. 



PENNSYLVANIA HORTICTJLTTJRAL 

 SOCIETY. 



The Fair at the opening of the new hall was a 

 great success. The receipts were over twelve thou- 

 sand dollars. A Bose and Strawberry show was 

 arranged to be h.ld during the fair, but the season 

 was too late for the time fixed, nevertheless some of 

 the Stinger, Philadelphia, and other new kinds of 

 strawberries, were on exhibition from Ciiarles Har- 

 n.er and A, S. Felton, as well as some very fine 

 dishes from Mr. Parry and others in New Jersey. 

 Mr. W. Saunders of the experimental gardens at 

 Washington, exhibited a large lot of fruit, gathered 

 from a miscellaneous bed of seedlings, sown only 

 last July. To us the most interesting fact was that 

 most of thorn were of quite as good properties as 

 most of the new ones sent out, showing how easy it 

 is to get a good .strawberry. There were first-rate 

 kinds enough amongst these to make the fortunes 

 of a hundred adventurers on the novelty line. 



The collection of greenhouse plants from Mr. 

 Buist, were excellently grown and v .ry select, and 

 Mr. Dreer did well with florists flowers. 



The hall itself, though yet unfinished, was the 

 admiration of all who saw it. In size it is believed 

 10 be the largest in the United States, the hall 

 covering an area of fifteen thousand square feet. 

 In the decoration of the hall for this special pur- 



