270 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
Climbing plants may be classed among the adventitious 
beauties of trees. Who has not often witnessed with 
delight in our native forests, the striking beauty of a noble 
tree, the old trunk and fantastic branches of which were 
enwreathed with the luxuriant and pliant shoots and rich 
foliage of some beautiful vine, clothing even its decayed 
limbs with verdure, and hanging down in gay festoons or 
loose negligent masses, waving to and fro in the air. The 
European Ivy ( Hedera Helix ) is certainly one of the 
finest, if not the very finest climbing plant (or more 
properly, creeping vine, for by means ol its little fibres or 
rootlets on the stems, it will attach itself to trees, walks, 
or any other substance), with which we are acquainted. 
It possesses not only very fine dark green palmated foliage 
in great abundance, but the foliage has that agreeable 
property of being evergreen, — which, while it enhances 
its value tenfold, is at the same time so rare among vines. 
The yellow flowers of the Ivy are great favorites with 
bees, from their honied sweetness ; they open in autumn, 
and the berries ripen in the spring. When planted at the 
root of a tree, it will often, if the head is not too thickly 
clad with branches, ascend to the very topmost limbs ; 
and its dark green foliage, wreathing itself about the old 
and furrowed trunk, and hanging in careless drapery from 
the lower branches, adds greatly to the elegance of even 
the most admirable tree. Spenser describes the appear- 
ance of the Ivy growing to the tops of the trees, 
“ Emongst the rest, the clamb’ring Ivie grew, 
Knitting his wanton arms with grasping hold, 
Lest that the poplar happely should renew 
Her brother’s strokes, whose boughs she doth enfold 
With her lythe twigs, till they the top survew, 
And paint with pallid green her buds of gold.” 
