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<td valign="top" width="50%"><strong>Synonyms</strong>
Hedera caucasigena Pojark, Hedera
chrysocarpa Walsh, Hedera helix var.
chrysocarpa Ten., Hedera taurica Carr., Hedera
helix var. taurica Tobler

Ivy is an ancient sacred plant that was associated
with the cult of Dionysos, the god of wine, inebriation'
and ecstasy. Dioscorides described three
types of ivy,330 one of which bore the same name
as the god, Dionysos. Plutarch, the philosopher,
oracular priest, and disciple of Dionysos, wrote in
his Roman Questions (112) that ivy contains
"powerful spirits" that produce outbursts of
madness and cramps. Ivy could induce an
"inebriation without wine;' or a type of possession
in those who had a natural tendency to enter
ecstatic states. When ivy leaves are added to wine
(see Vitis vinifera) , the resulting mixture is able to produce a delirium, «a confusion that can otherwise
be produced only by henbane" (see Hyoscyamus
niger). The Roman naturalist Pliny the
Elder also wrote of the psychoactive effects:
[Ivy] confuses the mind, cleanses, when drunk
in excess, the head; taken internally, it
damages the nerves, but is healthy for these
same nerves when applied externally.... As a
drink, [all species of ivy] are diuretic, soothe
headaches, especially in the brain. . . . The
berries, which are the color of saffron, provide
certain protection against inebriation when
they are taken beforehand as a drink. (Pliny
24.75178)
Ivy has been linked to the Dionysian ecstasy of
the maenads (= female bacchantes, bassarides; cf.
Vitis vinifera) primarily through the work of
Robert Graves and his book The White Goddess. It
has been rumored that Graves wrote this book
while under the influence of psilocybin. Otherwise,
the ancient sources would be difficult to
interpret in this manner:
October was the season of the Bacchanal
revels of Thrace and Thessaly in which the
intoxicated Bassarids rushed wildly about on
the mountains, waving the fir-branches of
Queen of Artemis (or Ariadne) spirally
wreathed with ivy-the yellow-berried sortin
honour of Dionysus . . . , and with a
roebuck tattooed on their right arms above
the elbow. They tore fawns, children and even
men to pieces in their ecstasy. The ivy was
sacred to Osiris as well as to Dionysus. Vine
and ivy come next to each other at the turn of
the year, and are jointly dedicated to resurrection....
It is likely that the Bassarids' tipple
was "spruce-ale;' brewed from the sap of
silver-fir [Abies cephalonica Loud.] and laced
with ivy; they may also have chewed ivy-leaves
for their toxic effect. Yet the main Maenad
intoxicant will have been amanita muscaria.
(Graves 1966, 183)
The botanical identity of the inebriating ivy is a
total mystery: «However, the Dionysian ivy was
not the one native among us but the northern
Indian with the yellow berries, of which it is said
that it grows only on the mountain of Meros, near
Indian Nysa" (Duerr 1978,213). This may refer to
Himalayan ivy (Hedera nepalensis K. Koch [sm.
Hedera himalaica Tobl.]) , which bears orangeyellow
fruits.
Some subjects who have smoked the dried
leaves have reported them to be inebriating.
Ivy leaves contain glycosides, inositol, chlorogenic
acid, hedera tannic acid, malic acid, formic
acid, and triterpene hedera saponines (a-hedrine),
as well as the trace elements arsenic, zinc, copper, manganese, iodine, lithium, and aluminum. The
alkaloid emetine has been found in Egyptian
specimens (Horz and Reichling 1993, 399). In the
toxicological literature, it is noted that «a 3-yearold
child ate a large amount and had hallucinations"
(Roth et al. 1994, 391 *). To date, however,
no truly inebriating substances have been found in
ivy. Francesco Festi has worked extensively on the
botany and phytochemistry of ivy and has not
found the slightest evidence of the presence of
psychoactive compounds (F. Festi, pers. comm.).
It may be that the ancient word for ivy was a
catchall phrase for climbing plants. There are vines
(Convolvulus tricolor) in the Mediterranean
region whose seeds contain lysergic acid derivatives.
Or «ivy" may have been a designation for
another plant that is no longer known or able to
be identified but which had potent inebriating
effects and contained psychoactive compounds.331
Imagine that a medical historian of the future
finds an article written in the present that notes,
"Grass has potent effects when smoked." He might
think that people were smoking grass from their
lawns as an inebriant. If he were to smoke it
himself, he would find that it produces no such
effects. How would he know that «grass" is a
common and generally understood name for
hemp (Cannabis sativa or Cannabis indica) and
for its female flowers?</td>
<td valign="top" width="53%"><strong>Literature
</strong>Horz, Karl-Heinrich, and Jiirgen Reichling. 1993.
Hedera. In Hagers Handbuch der pharmazeutischen
Praxis, 5th ed., 4:398-407. Berlin: Springer.</td>
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