HOLLY 



caution against any such contingency — so regular and de- 

 liberate as to suggest that these trees are something more 

 than unconscious automata. 



" Many of these hollies are thirty feet high, with foliage 

 down to the ground. They carry spinous leaves up to a 

 height of three or four feet ; above that level all the foliage 

 is absolutely smooth and spineless. One tree rose from the 

 ground in two bare stems, and the lower branches did not 

 reach below the browsing level. But from between the two 

 old stems rose a young shoot about four feet long, clothed 

 throughout its entire length with intensely prickly leaves. 

 This tree was growing in an enclosed wood where cattle 

 could not come ; still, roedeer might be about, and the holly 

 armed its young growth at the low level, although the 

 leaders of the old stems, not less vigorous in growth, bore 

 leaves as smooth as a camellia's. I noted one particularly 

 suggestive tree, an unhealthy one. The growth had died 

 back along most of the branches, which stood out bare and 

 dry ; but a recuperative effort was in progress ; fresh and 

 luxuriant growth was bursting along nearly the whole 

 height of the stem, and the foliage of this was vigorously 

 prickly up to about four feet, and smooth above that height. 

 I noticed many instances of localised prickly growth where 

 boughs, originally above the browsing level, and clothed 

 with spineless leaves, had been weighed down and cropped 

 by cattle. But this is merely a vigorous reaction against 

 external injury, such as makes a clipped holly hedge bear 

 spinous foliage from base to summit."^ 



This quotation shows that there is no doubt as to the 



facts. It is true that one finds cultivated hollies showing 



many variations. Sometimes all the leaves are spiny, both 



^ Memories of the Months, Third Series, p. 366. 



187 



