Part 46 (1/2)

As a wild plant, the Ivy is found in Europe, Asia, and Africa, but not in America, and wherever it is found it loves to cover old walls and buildings, and trees of every sort, with its close and rich drapery and cl.u.s.ters of black fruit,[132:1] and where it once establishes itself it is always beautiful, but not always harmless. Both on trees and buildings it requires very close watching. It will very soon destroy soft-wooded trees, such as the Poplar and the Ash, by its tight embrace, not by sucking out the sap, but by preventing the outward growth of the shoots, and checking--and at length preventing--the flow of sap; and in buildings it is no doubt beneficial as long as it is closely watched and kept in place, but if allowed to drive its roots into joints, or to grow under roofs, the swelling roots and branches will soon displace any masonry, and cause immense mischief.

We have only one species of Ivy in England, and there are only two real species recognized by present botanists, but there are infinite varieties, and many of them very beautiful. These variegated Ivies were known to the Greeks and Romans, and were highly prized by them, one especially with white fruit (at present not known) was the type of beauty. No higher praise could be given to a beauty than that she was ”Hedera formosior alba.” These varieties are scarcely mentioned by Gerard and Parkinson, and probably were not much valued; they are now in greater repute, and nothing will surpa.s.s them for rapidly and effectually covering any bare s.p.a.ces.

I need scarcely add that the Ivy is so completely hardy that it will grow in any aspect and in any soil; that its flowers are the staple food of bees in the late autumn; and that all the varieties grow easily from cuttings at almost any time of the year.

FOOTNOTES:

[130:1] Sheep feeding on Ivy--

”My sheep have Honeysuckle bloom for pasture; Ivy grows In mult.i.tudes around them, and blossoms like the Rose.”

THEOCRITUS, _Idyll_ v. (_Calverley_).

[132:1]

”The Ivy-mesh Shading the Ethiop berries.”--KEATS, _Endymion_.

KECKSIES.

_Burgundy._

And nothing teems But hateful Docks, rough Thistles, Kecksies, Burs, Losing both beauty and utility.

_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (51).

Kecksies or Kecks are the dried and withered stems of the Hemlock, and the name is occasionally applied to the living plant. It seems also to have been used for any dry weeds--

”All the wyves of Tottenham came to se that syght, With Wyspes, and Kexis, and ryschys ther lyght, To fech hom ther husbandes, that wer tham trouth plyght.”

”The Tournament of Tottenham,” in RITSON'S _Ancient Songs and Ballads_.

KNOT-GRa.s.s.

_Lysander._

Get you gone, you dwarf; You minimus, of hindering Knot-gra.s.s made; You bead, you Acorn.

_Midsummer Night's Dream_, act iii, sc. 2 (328).

The Knot-gra.s.s is the Polygonum aviculare, a British weed, low, straggling, and many-jointed, hence its name of Knot-gra.s.s. There is no doubt that this is the plant meant, and its connection with a dwarf is explained by the belief, probably derived from some unrecorded character detected by the ”doctrine of signatures,” that the growth of children could be stopped by a diet of Knot-gra.s.s. Steevens quotes Beaumont and Fletcher to this effect, and this will probably explain the epithet ”hindering.” But there may be another explanation. Johnston tells us that in the north, ”being difficult to cut in the harvest time, or to pull in the process of weeding, it has obtained the sobriquet of the Deil's-lingels.” From this it may well be called ”hindering,” just as the Ononis, from the same habit of catching the plough and harrow, has obtained the prettier name of ”Rest-harrow.”