1902 ARBORETUM AND FRUTICETUM. PART 111. 
Bridge, and the other in the private garden at Whitehall, having lesser leaves 
than the former. The latter of these,” he adds, “is yet standing, and every 
year bears small acorns which I could never observe come to any maturity.” 
(Ger. Emac., p. 1343.) Parkinson, in 1640, mentions the same tree as 
standing “in the king’s privie garden at Whitehall ;” and Evelyn, in 1678, 
speaks of it as a“ sickly imp of more than fourscore years’ growth.” Gerard 
calls it the great skarlet oke ; but Parkinson corrects him, and applies the 
name of the scarlet holm oke only to the true species, Q. coccifera, or, as 
he calls it, Q. coccigera. Q. I‘lex was called the holm oak on account of 
the resemblance of the leaves of some of the varieties to those of the holly ; 
though this term is more applicable to Q. gramintia. Evelyn seems to have 
been one of the first to recommend the planting of this tree generally for 
hedges and standards; but the most extensive planter of the ilex was, doubt- 
less, “that curious gentleman, Robert Balle, Esq., F.R.S., of Mamhead, in 
Devonshire,” who raised some thousands of these trees from acorns, and 
transplanted them with so much success and judgment, that Bradley, writing 
about the beginning of the last century, says that some of them, in a few 
years, “had grown to a considerable greatness of stature.” Some account of 
these trees will be found in the Gardener’s Magazine, vol. xi. ; by which it 
appears that the largest of them, which grows in a red loamy soil, on a sub- 
stratum of redstone conglomerate, about 600 ft. above the level of the sea, 
was, in 1835, 85ft. high, with a trunk 11 ft. in circumference; another 
was 70 ft. high, with a trunk 14ft. in circumference; and a third was 55 ft. 
high, with a trunk 22ft. in circumference. The Q. J‘lex has ripened fruit 
at Marino, and other places, in the vicinity of Dublin; and it has attained 
a considerable size in Scotland, as will appear by our Statistics. It is much 
planted in France ; and is by far the commonest evergreen in Italy, where the 
monotonous character which it gives to many of the celebrated gardens in 
the neighbourhood of Rome and Florence has obtained for it from Forsyth 
the appellation of “ the eternal ilex.” In the north of France, and in Ger- 
many, it is seldom met with except in green-houses; and it is also a green- 
house shrub in New York. 
Poetical and historical Allusions. Most of the ancient writers, as well sacred 
as profane, appear to make a difference between the ilex and the common 
oak. According to Lowth, the teil tree mentioned by Isaiah (vi. 13.) was an 
ilex. Goodwyn, in his Jewish Antiquities, p.'75,, observes that the holm 
oak was an object of worship among the Etruscans. Modern poets, particu- 
larly those of the south of Europe, also make occasional allusions to this 
tree. In Spain, Garcilasso says, — 
— ‘* Hast thou forgotten, too, 
Childhood’s sweet sports, whence first my passion grew ; 
When from the bowery ilex I shook down 
Its autumn fruit, which on the craig’s high crown 
We tasted, sitting chattering side by side ? 
Who climb’d trees swinging o’er the hoarse deep tide, 
And pour’d into thy lap, or at thy feet, 
Their kernel’d nuts, the sweetest of the sweet?” WirFFEN’s Garcilasso, p. 215. 
Garcilasso, in another poem, mentions both the oak and the ilex : — 
* But, in calm idlesse laid, 
Supine in the cool shade 
Of oak or ilex, beech or pendent pine, 
Sees his flocks feeding stray, 
Whitening a length of way, 
Or numbers up his homeward tending kine.’’ Ibid., p. 198. 
Properties and Uses. The sap wood of the Q. Ilex is whitish; but the 
heart, or perfect, wood, is of a brown colour, very close-grained, heavy, and 
very hard ; so much so, indeed, that, according to Parkinson, it is “ not easie 
for an axe, but for a saw, to cut it.” (Theat, Bot., p. 1394.) It weighs 70 lb. to 
the cubic foot, and takes a fine polish; but twists and splits a great deal in 
drying, like most other hard and heavy woods. It is of great duration, and 
also of considerable flexibility ; for which reason, in Languedoc, helves of 
hatchets and other instruments are made of it, and are found to preserve their 
