Ivy
Plants and Trees in the Bible
Pictures
In the Bible
The Hebrew and Greek words for it, and every verse where each is used
κισσός kissos · 1 verse
κισσόφυλλον kissofullon · 1 verse
More about it
Some readers may not think of Ivy Hedera helix as a “tree,” but we include it here because, like “proper trees” it has a thick, woody stem. People in cities, who only see it climbing the walls of buildings, need to be reminded that it also grows in forests. The two references in Scripture are in the Deuterocanon, where we read of ivy wreaths being worn by those in the procession for Dionysus, the Greek god of fruitfulness and vegetation, and of people being branded with an ivy-leaf symbol of Dionysus.
Also in Wild Trees and Shrubs
Sources
Plants and Trees in the Bible, Animals in the Bible and Human-made Things in the Bible © United Bible Societies, 2025 (adapted from Each According to its Kind: Plants and Trees in the Bible by Robert Koops, All Creatures Great and Small: Living Things in the Bible by Edward R. Hope, and The Works of Their Hands: Man-made Things in the Bible by Ray Pritz), CC BY-SA 4.0; adapted for eRhema