PENTANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. Illecebrum. 339 
I. verticilla'tum. Flowers in whorls, naked: stems trailing. 
Kniph. 12—{E.Bot. 895. E.)— FI. Dan . 335— Vaill. 15. 7—J. B. iii. 378. 2 
— Pet. 10. 7— Ger. Em. 563— Park. 1333 — Ger. 449. 1. 
fancifully coloured) has been time immemorial a liberal contributor; a custom traced 
through Druidism to various solemnities of Pagan worship, and, as we have elsewhere 
ventured to suggest, originating in a yet more remote and sacred source. Vid.Box. Pity 
it were to dissipate agreeable delusions ; but how far the prevalent opinion, that our plant 
is the same with the species of classical notoriety, 
“ An /by-wreath, fair learning’s prize, 
Raises Mecaenas to the skies : ” Hor. 
or which composed the coronal of Homeric Bacchus, and to which was attributed the happy 
power of preventing intoxication, may, perhaps, be questionable. We learn from Bauhine 
and Tournefort, that the plant emphatically termed the Poet's Ivy in the Archipelago, the 
Hedera Dionysias, consecrated to Bacchanalian festivity, is remarkable for its golden 
berries, whence termed Chrysocarpos. “ Hedera nigra ” of Virgil may be our common 
Ivy; and it is possible to suppose that the “ Pallentes Hederce ” of the same illustrious poei 
(Georg, iv. 124), might be merely descriptive of the gleamy light playing upon the glossy 
foliage; or perhaps, with equal or greater probability, of the variegated kinds, or, more 
especially, the yellow berried, so common in Thrace and at Constantinople : but we are 
at a loss to reconcile to our conceptions of Ivy, the 
“ Candidior cycnis Hederce formosior alba,” 
described in the 7th Eclogue, and also recognised by Dioscorides, Theophrastus, and Pliny. 
The refined taste of an elegant writer rejects altogether the appropriation of our sombre 
production to the rosy God of revelry ; 
“ Oh! how could fancy crown with thee. 
In ancient days the God of wine, 
And bid thee at the banquet be 
Companion of the vine ? 
Thy home, wild plant, is where each sound 
Of revelry hath long been o’er;— 
* * * 
* * * 
But thou art there thy foliage bright, 
Unchanged, the mountain storm can brave ; 
Thou that wilt climb the loftiest height. 
And deck the humblest grave. 
And still let man his fabrics rear, 
August in beauty, grace, and strength,— 
Days pass;—thou, Ivy , never sere. 
And all is thine at last!” 
Sphoeria Hederce is parasitic upon the leaves of Ivy. Bees and other winged 
insects may be observed swarming about the flowers very late in the autumn ; and, 
indeed, it is the last flower that supports the hymenopterous and dipterous insects. 
As we find remarked in the interesting “Journal of a Naturalist,” “In the month 
of October the Ivy blooms in profusion, and spreading over the warm side of some 
neglected wall, or the sunny bark of the broad Ash, its flowers become a universal 
banquet to the insect race. The great Black fly, {Musca grossa ), and its numerous tribe, 
with multitudes of small winged creatures, resort to them ; and there we see those beautiful 
animals, the latest birth of the year, the Admiral, ( Vanessa Atalantd ), and Peacock, 
(E . Io), butterflies, hanging with expanded wings like open flowers themselves, enjoying 
the sunny gleam, and feeding on the sweet liquor that distils from the nectary of this plant.” 
That ingenious naturalist, the Rev. Gilbert White, of Selborne, observes : “ In heavy fogs, 
trees are perfect alembics ; by condensing the vapour, distilling much water which trickles 
down the twigs and boughs. Ivy leaves are smooth, and thick, and cold, and therefore 
condense very fast, and besides evergreens imbibe very little. These facts may furnish the 
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