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Plants with Purpose - The Merits of Ivy
On a walking holiday in Devon last month, the high hedge-banks were sweet with nectar in the warm weather, and pulsating with honeybees, bumblebees and other insects. It was like walking through a busy apiary. It was all because the ivy (Hedera helix) was in full, riotous flower (see picture). The last nectar source of the year for insects, ivy is essential for the beekeeper’s garden, enabling bees to stock up to survive the winter.
The flowers form on the mature parts of the climbing plant, especially where it is allowed to climb trees and high banks, and are followed by round black berries, which are food for birds in winter.
Ivy doesn’t get much of a mention in modern herbals, nor does it find its way into the less subversive herb garden. It has been used to treat rheumatic ailments such as gout, and ulcerous skin conditions, while the berries were once considered an excellent purgative. But it is generally agreed to be poisonous, and, although this is only when taken in excess, it’s best to leave medicinal prescription to a qualified practitioner. |
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It’s also widely believed to be parasitic, killing trees on which it climbs. This is not the case; it is just as happy on walls, and if you cut ivy on a tree from its roots, it dies, proving that it gets its sustenance from the soil. It can weaken other plants by blocking out light, but usually this happens when the “host” tree is already failing, and the ivy just exploits the situation.
Poisonous or not, when we kept goats, the local goat-guru recommended ivy as a sure cure when they were sickly. Right enough, it was relished as a treat and tonic, and revived poorly goats to great form in no time. Deer and sheep will also eat ivy, especially in cold winters. Holly Blue caterpillars feed on the foliage in autumn, and Brimstone butterflies overwinter there. Pipistrelle bats roost in ivy on walls, and in spring, it is a favourite nesting site for blue tits and other small birds.
What Ivy lacks as a medicine, it clearly makes up for in wildlife value!
Then there’s magic. With Holly, Ivy is the traditional Christmas decoration. But it’s a tradition older than Christmas – indeed, it was once banned in churches. Ivy is associated with fidelity, fertility and the passage from winter to spring. In pre-Christian times a “holly man” and an “ivy woman” were decorated and brought into the home to celebrate New Year. It is particularly associated with Bacchus, the pagan god of intoxication, and there are many half-forgotten hangover remedies in which ivy is the main player. Its portrait turns up on inn signs (where it implies good quality wine is sold therein) and ivy worn round the head is even said to prevent drunken-ness, being an antidote to the vine!
Just the thing, perhaps, for all those Christmas parties…….
© Margaret Lear, Bankfoot
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