210 THE PERIWINKLE FAMILY. 



and admirable distinctiveness, whether in the wilderness, the hedge- 

 rows, the garden, or the glad, bright, songful atmosphere of Christmas 

 under the roof of home. Perhaps no tree is so universally beloved 

 for its beautiful and heart- stirring associations. The edges of the 

 leaves, waved with prickly teeth, present the most elegant curves in 

 nature. The upper leaves are sometimes quite entire. 



Holly grows wild all over Great Britain, except in the North-east 

 of Scotland, and belongs accordingly to the indigenous Flora of 

 Manchester. 



HABITATS AND LOCALITIES. 

 Common Holly — [Ilex Aquifolium.) 



In hedges and woods, especially on a light or gravelly soil, often, 

 without doubt, from the hand of man, but truly wild at Greenfield and 

 in other mountainous districts. Between Disley and Strines there is 

 a natural wood of it. (Mr. J, Sidebotham.) Fl. May. 



E. B. vii. 496 ; Baxter, iv. 262. 



The variegated hollies which so greatly ornament our gardens and plantations ; 

 the extraordinary " porcupine holly," which has prickles upon the surface of the 

 leaves, as well as round the edge ; and the smooth or thornless kinds, are all 

 varieties, induced by cultivation, of the common Ilex Aquifolium. Mr. Yates has 

 a remarkable collection of them. 



LIX.— THE PERIWINKLE FAMILY. ApomjndcecB. 



A large and splendid family of the tropics, especially the hotter 

 parts of Asia, which they greatly assist to ornament, but, like the 

 Ranuncvdacea3 of the North, they are in many cases venomous, and 

 very generally to be suspected, though now and then yielding eatable 

 fruit. A few scattered representatives only are thrown ovit into 

 temperate and cold countries, such as the dog's-bane or Apocynum 

 of North America, and some of the pretty undershrubby and often 

 trailing plants comprised in the genus Vinca. A great diversity of 

 character pertains to them ; in one curious point they seem, however, 

 to correspond universally, namely, in the structure of the stigmas, 

 which are collected into a massive head, expanded at the base into a 

 ring-like membrane, and in the middle contracted, so as to resemble a 



