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change: from being lobed, it becomes heart-shaped; 
then too it puts forth its umbels of pretty pale green 
flowers, which first show themselves in October, and 
continue, in mild seasons, through December, and are 
then succeeded by large black berries, which are fully 
formed in February, but do not ripen till April. 
The eulogisers of the ivy, however, must not forget 
that it has had its calumniators, by whom it has been 
sometimes considered a fit emblem of perfidy and in¬ 
gratitude. Shakspeare insinuates this, when, in “ The 
Tempest,” he makes Prospero say of his treacherous 
brother,— 
-« He was 
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk, 
And suck’d my verdure out on’t.” 
And in another play he entitles it “ usurping ivy.” 
Nor has it met with more mercy from some modern 
authors, one of whom thus pointedly condemns it: — 
“ The oak that rears it from the ground, 
And bears its tendrils to the skies, 
Feels at its heart the rankling wound, 
And in its poisonous arms he dies.” 
To these charges we offer the following eloquent 
extract from the author of “ Les Etudes de la Nature,” 
Q 3 
