Some days since, whilst searching for wild flowers, in a forest on the Brandy wine, about a half-mile above Wilmington, Del., I discovered the English ivy - Hedera helix - growing over the exposed roots and the lower portion of the trunk of a tree, fifteen or twenty years of age. No house, nor barn, nor ruined wall was in sight from the spot where the specimen was found, and I could see no reason why any one should have selected this particular tree and place for setting out the plant.

Had the tree been a beech, and had I found four and a half feet directly above the ivy a pair of monograms sunk with a knife deeply into the bark, and surrounded by symbols, carefully cut, but of mysterious import, I would have strongly suspected the planting to have been the work of man.

The circumstances in this case I think certainly prove; that a little bird planted the seed, and that Hedera helix, if it has not heretofore been detected away from its proper wall, or garden border, will have hereafter to be classed among the strays. Perhaps some of the readers of the Monthly may tell us whether this waywardness is of old or recent date.