96 THE POETRY OF FLOWERS 
FRIENDSHIP. 
IVY. 
I love the ivy-mantled tower, 
Rocked by the storms of thousand years. 
Cunningham. 
Friendship has chosen for its device an ivy which clothes a 
fallen tree, with these words: Rien ne peut m'en detacher .” 
In Greece, the altar of Hymen was surrounded with ivy, a 
sprig of which was presented by the priest to a new-married 
spouse, as the symbol of an indissoluble knot. The Bacchan¬ 
tes, old Silenus, and Bacchus himself, were crowned with ivy. 
The author of a French work says : “ Nothing is able to separ¬ 
ate the ivy from the tree around ivhich it has once entwined 
itself; it clothes the object with its own foliage in that inclem¬ 
ent season when its black boughs are covered with hoar-frost; 
the companion of its destinies, it falls when the tree is cut 
down. Death itself does not detach it, but it continues to dec¬ 
orate with its constant verdure the dry trunk it had chosen as 
its support.” 
It is a popular error that the ivy is a parasitical plant, deri¬ 
ving its support from the tree which it environs, when in 
fact it is sustained by its own vital powers; its roots are fixed 
in the earth, and the sap is conveyed into its branches by the 
same laws which regulate the vital functions of other mem¬ 
bers of the vegetable kingdom. 
Thou art a friend indeed, 
Most truly true and kind; 
Thou givest me, in my spirit-need, 
Thy wealth of heart and mind ! 
f. s. o. 
