VINES AND CLIMBING PLANTS. 
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To the ruined fane where in youth it sprung, 
And its pliant tendrils in sport were flung. 
When the sinking buttress, and mouldering tower 
Seem only the spectres of former power 
Then the Ivy clusters round the wall, 
And for tapestry hangs in the moss-grown hall. 
Striving in beauty and youth to dress 
The desolate place in its loneliness.” 
Romance of Nature. 
The Ivy lives to a great age, if we may judge from the 
specimens that overrun some of the oldest edifices of Europe, 
which are said to have been covered with it for centuries, 
and where the main stems are seen nearly as large as the 
trunk of a middle sized tree. 
“ Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed, 
And nations have scattered been ; 
But the stout old Ivy shall never fade 
From its hale and hearty green ; 
The brave old plant in its lonely days, 
Shall fatten upon the past ; 
For the stateliest building man can raise, 
Is the Ivy’s food at last.” 
The Ivy is not a native of America ; nor is it by any 
means a very common plant in our gardens, though we 
know of no apology for the apparent neglect of so beautiful 
a climber. It is hardy south of the latitude of 42°, and we 
have seen it thriving in great luxuriance as far north as 
Hyde Park, on the Hudson, 80 miles above New- York. 
One of the most beautiful growths of this plant, which has 
ever met our eyes, is that upon the old mansion in the Bo- 
tanic Garden at Philadelphia, built by the elder Bartram. 
That picturesque and quaint stone building is beautifully 
overrun by the most superb mantle of Ivy, that no one who 
has once seen can fail to remember with admiration. The 
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