Common Ivy
Hedera
(English name ivy, plural ivies) is a genus of 15 species of climbing or
ground-creeping evergreen woody plants in the family Araliaceae, native to the
Atlantic Islands, western, central and southern Europe, northwestern Africa and
across central-southern Asia east to Japan. On suitable surfaces (trees and rock
faces), they are able to climb to at least 25–30 metres above the basal ground
level.
They have two leaf types, with palmately lobed juvenile leaves on creeping and
climbing stems, and unlobed cordate adult leaves on fertile flowering stems
exposed to full sun, usually high in the crowns of trees or the top of rock
faces. The juvenile and adult shoots also differ, the former being slender,
flexible and scrambling or climbing with small roots to affix the shoot to the
substrate (rock or tree bark), the latter thicker, self-supporting, and without
roots. The flowers are produced in late autumn, individually small, in 3–5 cm
diameter umbels, greenish-yellow