Gothic climber

More than any other plant, ivy has an air of mournfulness and faded glory, at home among ruins. It flowers in autumn, a last feast for insects soon to succumb to winter's chills. It is often regarded as a smotherer, a puller-down of trees unable to bear its weight. But it was also a good-luck charm, twined with honeysuckle to keep evil from the cows. It seemed to have power of good and bad - a gothic of the plant world. But a gothic with a practical streak. It has been claimed as a cure for verrucas and a healer of corns. When boiled in rainwater, it was said to be peerless as a restorer of the shabbiest suit. The melancholy and the prosaic are beautifully combined in one plant.