Ivy

Part of speech: noun (n.)

A plant of the genus Hedera (H. helix), common in Europe. Its leaves are evergreen, dark, smooth, shining, and mostly five-pointed; the flowers yellowish and small; the berries black or yellow. The stem clings to walls and trees by rootlike fibers. Direct The clasping ivy where to climb. Milton. Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere. Milton. American ivy. (Bot.) See Virginia creeper. -- English ivy (Bot.), a popular name in America for the ivy proper (Hedera helix). -- German ivy (Bot.), a creeping plant, with smooth, succulent stems, and fleshy, light-green leaves; a species of Senecio (S. scandens). -- Ground ivy. (Bot.) Gill (Nepeta Glechoma). -- Ivy bush. (Bot.) See Mountain laurel, under Mountain. -- Ivy owl (Zoöl.), the barn owl. -- Ivy tod (Bot.), the ivy plant. Tennyson. -- Japanese ivy (Bot.), a climbing plant (Ampelopsis tricuspidata), closely related to the Virginia creeper. -- Poison ivy (Bot.), an American woody creeper (Rhus Toxicodendron), with trifoliate leaves, and greenish-white berries. It is exceedingly poisonous to the touch for most persons. -- To pipe in an ivy leaf, to console one's self as best one can. [Obs.] Chaucer. -- West Indian ivy, a climbing plant of the genus Marcgravia.