THE IVY — continued. 
may reach ten inches in diameter, so that on some old ruined walls we may see that, 
as Tennyson says, 
“ monstrous ivy stems 
Claspt the gray walls with hairy-fibred arms, 
And suckt the joining of the stones, and looked 
A knot, beneath, of snakes — aloft, a grove.” 
Clinging thus to its support the Ivy has become an emblem of constancy, and 
in ancient Greece a newly-wedded couple were accordingly presented with an Ivy 
wreath. Though often mistaken for a parasite, the Ivy extracts no nourishment 
from any tree upon which it grows, though the mechanical constriction of its 
clasping stems may prove fatal to the supporting tree. How great may be the 
pressure it exerts in growth can be gauged from the fact that it has been known to 
deeply indent and flatten a thick leaden water-pipe. The climbing rootlets are 
strongly negatively heliotropic, so that they turn from the light towards the bark, 
rocks, or building into any crevices of which they will force themselves ; while if the 
stems themselves find their way between the joints of the masonry their expansion 
in growth may throw down long stretches of wall. 
The leaves on the trailing and climbing parts of the plant are three- or five- 
angled, and lie so as to form a leaf-mosaic, capturing the maximum of their limited 
supply of sunlight ; but at the top of tree or wall the plant branches freely in 
a radial manner and bears ovate, single-pointed leaves which hang nearly vertically, 
or rather spread in various directions at right angles to the incidence of the light. The 
angular leaves of the lower part of the plant exhibit considerable variety in colouring, 
being often tinged with red, and with their veins prominently white or pale green. 
In September or October, one of our latest plants to flower, the Ivy produces, 
exclusively from its upper free-branching region, its umbels of blossom. The 
peduncles are covered with stellate hairs and a few flowers are borne racemosely 
below the simple globular umbel. The five yellowish petals bend backwards as if 
to catch the least gleam of the October sun ; and the honey, freely secreted on 
the top of the ovary, proves more attractive to the insect world, to the Peacock, 
Red Admiral, and Painted-Lady butterflies, to wasps, bees, flies, and gnats by day, 
and to a variety of moths by night, than the sweetest of treacle or the strongest 
of rum that the entomologist may use as a lure. The flowers will not apparently 
set seed with their own pollen. 
The greenish-black berries do not ripen till March or April, being unaffected 
even by severe frost. They are then largely eaten by starlings, thrushes, blackbirds, 
and the migrating ring-ousel ; but while the fleshy receptacular portion is digested, 
the lilac parchment-like endocarp enclosing the seed is not. The testa is folded 
in so as to produce a ruminate albumen, which does not occur in any other British 
plant, though well known in the Nutmeg. 
