IVRY-SUR-SEINE, a manufacturing t. of France, in the department of Seine, is situated on the left bank of the river of that name, 3 m. above Paris. Glass, earthen ware, and chemical products are the chief manufactures. Pop. '76, 15,247.
IVY, Hedera, a genus of plants of the natural order araliacece, consisting of shrubs and trees, mostly natives of tropical countries. The flowers have 5 or 10 petals, and 5 or 10 converging or consolidated styles. The fruit is a berry with 5 or 10 cells.—The • COMMON IVY (7/. hear) is a well-known native of Britain, and of most parts of Europe, although it is more rare in the northern countries. Its long, creeping, branched stem, climbing on trees and walls to a great height, and closely adhering even to very hard Substances by means of rootlets which it throws out in great abundance along its whole length. acquires in very aged plants almost the thickness of a small tree. Its 5-lobed, shining, stalked, evergreen leaves, clothing bare walls with green luxuriance, serve to throw off rain, whilst the rootlets of the stem suck out the moisture, so as to render damp walls dry, contrary to a common prejudice, that ivy tends to produce dampness in walls. It injures trees, however, both by abstracting their sap and by constriction. The flowering branches of ivy have ovate, entire leaves, very different from the others.
Its small greenish flowers are produced in the beginning of winter, and the small black berries are ripened in the following year. The berries arc eagerly eaten by many birds, although they have a pungent taste, had contain a peculiar bitter principle called heder ine,anil an acid called hale,• acid; which are ids° found in a gummy exudation obtained by incisions from the stem, and occasionally used in medicine as a depilatory and a stimulant, and in'varnish-mlking. An ointment made from the leaves is used in the highlands of Scotland to cure burns. In Egypt, the ivy was sacred to Osiris, in Greece to Bacchus (Dionysos), whose thyrsus was represented as surrounded with ivy; the Romans mingled it in the laurel crowns of their poets.
There are several varieties of ivy often planted for ornamental purposes, of which that generally known in Britain as IrLIA ivy, and on the continent as English ivy, is par ticularly esteemed for its large leaves and luxuriant growth. It is said to be a native of the Canary isles. Ivy grows readily from cuttings, unzbellifera, a native of Amboy na, is said to produce a. finely aromatic wood; and IL terebinthacea, a Ceylonese species, yields a resinous substance which smells like turpentine.