The message
from Alan Gould contains these words:

In article , Janet Baraclough
writes
This is nonsense. Ivy is not a parasitic plant, and does not obtain
its food or water from trees, any more than it does from walls; it gets
those through its own below-ground root system. If you sever climbing
ivy stems at the base of a tree trunk, the entire section of ivy *above*
the cut will die; proving that the living tree is not its means of
sustenance. It is not a "scavenger".

You are confusing the definitions of parasite and scavenger.

Not at all. A parasite derives its subsistence from another living
organism and a scavenger from a dead one. I was pointing out the reasons
why your two claims, first that ivy attacks living trees, sets about to
harm and kill them, and second that it scavenges their dead remains, are
both wrong.

Note to the confused; that's "wrong" as in "false, inaccurate, incorrect."

Janet.