![]() Hedera helix hibernica, or "Atlantic" ivy, with broader leaves, grows not only up trees and hedgerows and the walls of ancient ruins and shaded cliffs, but across the floors of woods and into the rocky crannies of our windiest offshore islands.īeyond the reach of cattle, deer and – notably – goats, ivy could grow as old as the oldest-surviving trees. Most of Ireland's ivy, especially in the west, is a subspecies of the regular European and English kind. Even without such worries, and acknowledging the worth of tree ivy to insects and birds, people can be sorely aggrieved by its impact on "natural beauty". If one mourns ivied trees, as many do, the dynamic ascents of Hedera helix (at 2m-3m a year) disfigure the grace of trunks and boughs and threaten to bring them crashing down in storms. Across the island, too, the landscape is clotted with spires and clumps of what, by sheer vigour and ubiquity, could pass as our national plant. ![]() There are parts of the west where it can seem, next to grass, the dominant winter vegetation. ![]() At the edge of spring, a changing light adds a glitter to the ivy that cloaks so many Irish trees. ![]()
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