| Ivy |
Ivy family |
| Hedera helix |
Araliaceae |
A common and widespread climber, Ivy can reach heights of up to 30 metres.
It is generally found either carpeting shady ground,
or climbing up trees, hedges, walls and fences, using sucker-like adhesive roots on its stem.
The greenish-white flowers appear late in the year,
although only at the tops of the stems which are in sunlight;
these provide valuable late-season nectar for insects.
The berries turn from green to black over the winter.
Ivy has two forms of leaf: the more familiar triangular-lobed juvenile ones of
non-flowering stems (the lower leaves in the picture below),
and the unlobed elliptical leaves on the mature stems (the upper leaves in the picture).
