400 
pltny's natural history. 
[Book XVI. 
it in Media, but to no purpose ; and that Alexander, in con- 
sequence of the rarity of this plant, had himself crowned'* 
with it, after the example of Father Liber, when returning 
victorious with his army from India : and at the present day 
even, it is used to decorate the thyrsus of that god, and the 
casques and bucklers employed by the nations of Thrace in 
their sacred ceremonials. The ivy is injurious^ to all trees 
and plants, and makes its way through tombs and walls ; it 
forms a haunt much frequented by serpents, for its refreshing 
coolness ; so that it is a matter for astonishment that there 
should have been such remarkable veneration for this plant. 
The two principal kinds in the ivy, as in other plants, are 
the male tree and the female.^ The male is said to have a 
larger trunk than the female, and a leaf that is harder and 
more unctuous, with a flower nearly approaching to purple ; 
indeed, the flower of both the male and female tree strongly 
resembles the wild'^-rose, were it not destitute of smell. Each 
of these kinds of ivy is divided into three other varieties ; 
the white^ ivy, the black,^ and a third known as the helix. 
These varieties are again subdivided into others, as there is 
one in which the fruit only is white, and another in which it 
is only the leaf that is so. In those which have a white fruit, 
the berry in some cases is closely packed and large, the clusters, 
which are known as corymbi," being of a spherical form. 
So, too, with the selenitium, which has a smaller berry, and 
fewer clusters ; and the same is the case with the black ivj. 
One kind has a black seed, and another a seed of a saffron^ ^ 
colour — it is this last that poets use for their chaplets,^^ and 
the leaves of it are not so black as in the other kinds : by some 
* Bacchus, after the alleged conquest by him of India, was said to 
have returned crowned with ivy, and seated in a car drawn by tigers. 
5 It is a mistake to suppose that the ivy exhausts the juices of trees. 
Its tendrils fasten upon the cortical fissures ; and, if the tree is but smaU, 
its development is apt to be retarded thereby. It is beneficial, rather 
than destructive, to walls. 
® This plant is really monoecious or androgynous. 
The Rosa Eglanteria. 
8 The Hedera helix of Linnaeus, or, possibly, a variety of it with varie- 
gated leaves. 
9 The Hedera arborea of C. Bauhin, the common ivy. 
'^^ The Hedera major sterilis of C. Bauhin. 
11 The first variety of the common ivy, the Hedera helix of Linnaeus. 
12 A wreath of ivy was the usual prize in the poetic contests. 
