222 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



impregnable hedge, glittering with its armed and varnished leaves, the latter standards 

 at ordei'ly distances, blushing with their natural coral 1 " 



It is said that hedges of Holly are now in existence that were planted more than 

 two centuries ago, and are still in good order. In Loudon's exhaustive work on the 

 Trees and Shrubs of Britain we have very curious details given of the age and size of 

 Holly trees. He mentions one tree, on the authority of Pliny, that must have been 

 upwards of 1,200 years old : also one tree standing at the time of Pliny, near the 

 Vatican in Home, on which was fixed a plate of brass with an insci'ijitiou in Tuscan 

 letters, showing that this tree was older than Rome itself, and must have stood there 

 for about 800 years. Cole tells us in bis " Paradise of Plants" that he knew a Holly 

 tree of enoi-mous size which grew in an orchard, and the owner, he says, '• cut it down 

 and caused it to be sawn into boards and made himself thereof a coffin, and if I 

 mistake not left enough to make his wife one also. Both the parties were very 

 corpulent, and therefore you may imagine the tree could not be small." 



There are records of Holly trees of great size growing in some of the counties of 

 England very recently. Near London, at Twickenham, is one forty feet high, and 

 several elsewhere in height from thirty to fifty feet. These trees are, however, exceptions 

 to the general apjiearance of Holly trees, which in England are usually not larger 

 than bushes; and tliis circumstance may be accounted for by the fact that the wood is 

 valuable and useful in the arts, and that therefore the trees have been felled before 

 attaining any great size. At one time the Holly tree grew abundantly in Sherwood 

 Forest and some of the extensive wilds of the Northern and Alidland counties, and 

 was probably the " greenwood tree " so often alluded to in the Robin Hood ballads 

 and other records of English forest life. The great Hollies growing in the open 

 glades of the woodlands, yielding good shelter all the year round, were favourite 

 trysting places for the bold outlaws and rangers of the forest, and we may imagine 

 Robin Hood and his man John arrayed iu their suits of green as scarcely distin- 

 guishable from the bright gi'een foliage of the tree which sheltered them. Until 

 lately some fine Holly trees stood in the New Forest; but they have been recently 

 cut down, and with them has been destroyed the abode of numberless thrushes and 

 sweet song-birds that delighted in their thick shade. 



To the turner the Holly wood is very valuable, as it is peculiarly even in the grain 

 and very white. It is greatly used by the makers of the wood-work called '' Tunbridge 

 ware," and in all sorts of inlaid wood. One of the chief uses of the wood at present is 

 as a substitute for ebony, when dyed black, in the handles of teapots, etc. The young 

 shoots and branches are given to sheep and deer to eat during the winter in France, 

 and the stronger straight shoots deprived of the bark are made into whip-handles and 

 walking-slicks. 



From the bark of the tree birdlime is prepared. The process adopted for its manu- 

 facture is somewhat tedious. The bark is stripped ofl['iu the summer and steeped in clean 

 water; it is then boiled until it separates in layers, when the inner green portion is laid up 

 in heaps until fermentation ensues; it will then become converted into a thick pasty muci- 

 laginous mass, and is pounded into a paste, washed, and laid by again to ferment ; it is 

 then mixed with grease or oil, and is ready for use. Very little of this composition is 

 made in England, but it is manufactured on a large scale in Italy and Turkey. Gar- 

 deners and birdcatchers are the only people who seem to have a use for it. The former 

 employ it on the stems of trees and shrubs and on wires and lines stretched round flower- 

 beds, as a protection against hares and rabbits. The Holly is not without a re[iutation in 

 medicine, and some years ago it was brought into notice as a tonic and febrifuge by 



