via/

with from 3 to 5 seeds. The whole plant is somewhat aromatic, especially the young climbing branches; and a very fragrant resin exudes from the old stems when bruised.

There is a variety, called Irish Ivy, which has much larger leaves, and is of very rapid growth, and on that account is much cultivated for hiding unsightly walls, buildings, &c.

The Ivy begins to flower about September, and continues flowering, if the weather is open, till the middle or latter end of December, as was the case last year, 1832. In consequence of its flowering so late, it is much resorted to by bees and flies, when little other food is to be had. The berries increase during the winter, are fully formed in February, and ripen in April, furnishing food for wild Pigeons, Blackbirds, Thrushes, &c. in the spring. Sheep are said to be fond of Ivy, it is considered a warm and wholesome food for them, and in snowy weather shepherds cut down branches of it for their flocks to browse on.-CATO directs, that in a scarcity of hay, cattle should be foddered with it.—It was held in great esteem by the ancients, and with it they formed the Poetic Garland. Bacchus is represented crowned with Ivy, to prevent intoxication; and HOMER describes his heroes as drinking out of a cup made of the wood. The fruit bearing branches of it, are used, with Holly, to decorate churches and houses at Christmas. The leaves are said to ease painful corns if applied to them; and in the Highlands an ointment is made from them to cure burns. The branches, being very full of leaves, are sometimes made use of by gardeners to protect the blossoms of Apricot, Peach, and Nectarine trees, from the cold winds of February and March.

The roots are used by leather-cutters to wet their knives upon; and when large, boxes, and even tables, are made of them.

The Ivy is not, as some have supposed it to be, a parasitical plant, for it derives its nourishment from the soil in which it grows, by means of roots which it sends into the earth, and not by those fibres by which it fixes itself to other bodies for support; this may be proved by cutting the stem through, above the ground, when it will be found that the part above the separation will die. This method of destroying it is often practised by the woodman, from an idea that it is injurious to the trees on which it grows; but, according to the facts and observations of Mr. REPTON on the supposed Effects of Ivy upon Trees, published in the 11th volume of the Transactions of the Linnæan Society, it appears, that instead of its being injurious to the trees which support it, it is often beneficial to them, and that its growth deserves to be encouraged rather than checked. Mr. CURTIS observes, that few people are acquainted with the beauty of Ivy; when suffered to run up a stake, and at length to form itself into a standard, the singular complication of its branches, and the vivid hue of its leaves, give it one of the first places amongst evergreens in a shrubbery.

In the Language of Flowers, Ivy is an emblem of Fidelity in Friendship.
It is the badge of the Scottish Clan GORDON.

Sphaela punctifo'rmis, Grev. Fl. Edin. p. 362, and Hysterium foli'colum, Var. Heldera, Grev. Scot. Crypt. Flora. t. 129. f. 1, are parasitic on dead leaves of the Ivy. The first is very common; the latter rather rare, at least in the neighbourhood of Oxford.

GALANTHUS*.

Linnean Class and Order. HEXA'NDRIA†, MONOGYNIA. Natural Order. AMARYLLI'DEÆ. Dr. R. Brown.-Lind. Syn. p. 264.; Introd. to Nat. Syst. of Bot. p. 259.-NARCISSEÆ, Rich. by Macgillv. p. 407.

GEN. CHAR. Calyx none. Corolla (Perianthium of Lind. and Hook.) superior, of six petals, deciduous; the three outer inverselyegg-shaped, concave, spreading, equal; the three inner (nectaries of Linn.) shorter, intermediate, upright, wedge-shaped, blunt, notched, internally furrowed. Filaments, from the summit of the germen, hair-like, very short, upright. Anthers terminal, much longer, upright, approaching, tapering, ending in a bristly point, and discharging their pollen by two terminal pores. Germen inferior, globose, abrupt. Style thread-shaped, longer than the stamens. Stigma simple, pointed. Capsule nearly globular, with three obtuse angles, of three cells, and three valves, each valve with a central partition. Seeds many, globose, attached to the partitions.-The three shorter, innermost petals, will distinguish this Genus from all other Genera in the same class and order.

One species British.

GALANTHUS NIVA'LIS. Common Snowdrop. Fair Maid of February.

SPEC. CHAR. Leaves not plaited. Lindley.

Engl. Bot. t. 19.-Hook. Fl. Lond. t. 14.-Sm. Fl. Brit. v. i. p. 352.-Engl. Fl. v. ii. p. 129.-With. (7th ed.) v. ii. p. 417.-Lindl. Syn. p. 265-Hook. Br. Fl. p. 151.-Abbot's Fl. Bedf. p. 73.-Purt. Mid. Fl. v. i. p. 170. v. iii. p. 350. -Hook. Fl. Scot. p. 100.-Grev. Fl. Edin. p. 75.-Walk. Fl. of Oxf. p. 90.Leucoium bulbosum præcox minus. Johnson's Gerarde, 147.

LOCALITIES.-In meadows, orchards, woods, hedges, and on the banks of rivers. In the chapel-yard at Rycot, near Thame, Oxfordshire, in abundance, but probably an escape from gardens. Mr. P. B. AYRES.-At the foot of the Malvern Hills, Worcestershire: on the right of the road running below the camp. Mr. BALLARD, in Bot. Guide.-Astley Wood, near Stourport, Worcestershire. HICKMAN, in Purt. Mid. Fl.-Packington, Warwickshire. COUNTESS of AYLESFORD, in Bot. Guide.-In Bedfordshire. Rev. C. ABBOT, in Fl. Bedf.Near Cirencester, Gloucestershire. Mr. ARROWSMITH, in With. Bot. Arr.— On the banks of the Tees, about Blackwell and Conniscliffe, certainly wild. Mr. E. ROBSON, ibid.- Near St. John's Chapel, and at Broad-gate, Barnstable, Devon. Mr. POLWHELE, ibid-Heaton Wood; and in the most sequestered situations of Scott's Wood Dean, Northumberland. Mr. WINCH, ibid.-Hedges at Laxfield, Suffolk, in great profusion. Mr. D. TURNER, ibid.-Pasture near Kirkstall Abbey, Yorkshire. Rev. W. WooD, ibid.-Banks of the Skell, near

Fig. 1. One of the inner Petals.-Fig. 2. Germen, Style, and Stamens.Fig. 3. Germen, Style, and Stigma; the stamens being removed.-Fig. 4. Capsule. Fig. 5. The same burst open, showing the 3 valves, with the central partitions, and the Seeds.

From gala, Gr. milk, and anthos, Gr. a flower, from the milky whiteness of the Corolla.

The sixth class in the Artificial System of LINNEUS, it comprehends all those plants which have perfect flowers, with six distinct, equal stamens.

The word Perianthium is employed to designate a calyx and corolla, the limits of which are undefined, so that they cannot be satisfactorily distinguished from each other, as in most Monocotyledonous plants, of which the Fritil lary, t. 1. the Tulip, t. 2. the Bee Ophrys, t. 8. and the Snowdrop, t. 33. are examples. See Lindl. Introd. to Bot. p. 113.

banks of the brook near Chudleigh Rock; and in a field near Moreton, Devon. Rev. J. PIKE JONES, ibid.-In a field near Wedgnock Park, towards Warwick. Mr. PERRY, ibid.-In the Hop-grounds on both sides of the road between Sibble and Castle Hedingham, Essex. Mr. GRAVES, in Hook. Fl. Lond.-Not uncommon in Sussex, but scarcely indigenous. Mr. BORRER, in Bot. Guide.-About Enborne, Berks, plentiful, but probably an outcast, originally, from gardens. Mr. BICHENO, in Dr. Mavor's Survey of Berks, p. 257.-Appleton and Besselsleigh, Berks. Miss HOSKINS.-In a field near Carshalton, Surrey, in great abundance. Mr. J. BIRCH.-Near Yeovil, Somersetshire. Mag. Nat. Hist. v. iii. p. 174.-Pentraeth, Anglesea, among brush-wood, S. E. of the church. Rev. H. DAVIES, in Welsh Bot.-Banks about Castlemilk, Glasgow, abundant. Mr. HOPKIRK, in Hook. Fl. Scot.-Arniston Woods, Edinburgh, in the greatest abundance, covering whole acres of ground. Messrs. MAUGHAN and SHUTER, ibid.

Perennial. Flowers in February and March.

Root, a tunicated, egg-shaped bulb, scarcely an inch long, acrid, white, with many simple fibres. Leaves radical, (growing immediately from the root,) in pairs, strap-shaped, keeled, entire, ending in a blunt, somewhat callous, point, and enclosed at the base in one common tubular, membranous sheath, or stipula. Scape (stalk) somewhat compressed, striated, from 4 to 8 inches high. Flowers nearly scentless, drooping, on a slender, terminal, partial stalk, which bursts from a membranous, 2-ribbed bractea or sheath (spatha of Linn.) Petals six, pure white; the three inner much shorter than the three outer, and marked on the outside, near the top, with a green blotch, and on the inside with about 7 yellowish green lines §.

The early appearance of the Snowdrop, with its pure white blossoms, “like pendent flakes of vegetating snow," render it a general flavourite. It frequently begins flowering towards the end of January, is in full bloom during the following month, and hence called Fair Maid of February; during this period it is the pride and ornament of our gardens, but begins to decline early in March, and by the first of April is generally quite out of flower.

Although this plant is found abundantly in many parts of Britain, as appears from the localities given above, yet, in consequence of its having been so long and so generally cultivated in gardens, it is doubted whether it is truly indigenous, many being of opinion that it may probably have originally escaped from cultivation. Be this as it may, its title to a place in the British Flora seems well established, from the circumstance of its having become naturalized in so many places. RAY and DILLENIUS omitted the Snowdrop in their Catalogue of British Plants, but how far they were right in so doing, is not now easy to determine. The late Mr. E. ROBSON was of opinion that it was certainly wild : and the author of that pleasing and interesting work, "The Journal of a Naturalist," says, that it is undoubtedly a native of our island, and that he has seen it in situations where nature only could introduce it, where it was never planted by the hand of man, or strayed from any neighbouring cultiva tion; yet he allows, that in most places where we find this flower, it is of manifest or suspicious origin, and that with us it partakes of the latter character, though no remains of any ancient dwelling are observable near.it. "The Damask Rose, the Daffodil, or the stock of an old Bullace Plum," says the same author," will long remain, and point out where once a cottage existed; but all these, and most other tokens, in time waste away and decay, while the Snowdrop will remain, increase, and become the only memorial of man and⚫ his labours."

§ The Snowdrop retains the beautiful ovate form of its flower only in a low temperature; warmth expands its petals and destroys its character. It becomes double by cultivation, but never wanders into varieties, or changes its colour.— "It was dedicated by the Romish Church to the Purification of the VIRGIN MARY; and it has been deemed the emblem of Consolation, as by its early revival from the death-like repose of winter, it cheers mortal man with the assurance of reanimation." Withering." Some snowdrop-roots taken up in winter, and boiled, had the insipid mucilaginous taste of the Orchis, and if cured in the same manner, would probably make as good Salep." Darwin.