Matilda Smith del. · John Nugent Fitch lith. · Vincent Brooks, Day & Son Ltd · L. Reeve & Co., London
Week of 3 August 2026
Boston ivy
Part 3 of 6 in Climbers and useful plants
Parthenocissus tricuspidata
Not an ivy at all but a grape relative from East Asia, whose three-pointed leaves turn scarlet in autumn and whose tendrils cling with tiny adhesive pads.
- Published
- Plate 8287, volume 135, 1909
- From
- Curtis's Botanical Magazine
- Drawn by
- Matilda Smith
- Lithograph
- John Nugent Fitch
- Technique
- Hand-coloured lithograph
- Family
- Vitaceae
- Native to
- China, Korea and Japan
About the plant
Parthenocissus tricuspidata is the plant most people picture when they say 'ivy on the walls', though it has nothing to do with true ivy. It is a deciduous vine of the grape family from the woods and cliffs of China, Korea and Japan, and it reached Western gardens from Japan in the 1860s, soon after the country reopened to trade. The name Parthenocissus, 'virgin ivy', was coined for its American cousin, the Virginia creeper.
What makes it so useful is the way it climbs. At the tip of each branching tendril is a small disc that swells and glues itself to whatever it touches, so the plant can cover sheer glass or painted render without the probing roots that let true ivy loosen old mortar. Through summer the glossy three-pointed leaves make a dense green coat that cools a building; in October they turn through orange to a scarlet that can be seen from streets away, then drop to reveal the lattice of stems and small blue-black berries that birds clear by Christmas.
The plate was drawn at Kew in 1909, when the plant was already a fixture on English houses and American colleges. Its common name honours the Boston of brick terraces and university quadrangles rather than any botanical connection to Massachusetts.
Bought together
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