EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 305 



decorated with its boughs. We have much to rec^ret, 

 therefore, in the severity of our winters, which will not 

 permit the European Holly to flourish in the middle or 

 eastern states, as a hardy tree. South of Philadelphia, it 

 may become acclimated ; but it appears to suffer greatly 

 further north. 



A beautiful succedaneum, however, may, we believe, be 

 found in the American Holly {Ilex opaca), which indeed 

 very closely resembles the foreign species in almost every 

 particular. The leaves are waved or irregular in surface 

 and outline, though not so much so as those of the latter, 

 and their color is a much lighter shade of green. Like 

 those of the foreign plant, they are armed on the edges 

 with thorny prickles, and the surfaoe is brilliant and 

 pohshed. The American Holly is seen in the greatest 

 perfection on the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia, 

 and the lower part of New Jersey. There it thrives 

 best upon loose, dry, and gravelly soils. Michaux says 

 it is also common through all the extreme southern states, 

 and in West Tennessee, in which latter places it abounds 

 on the margins of shady swamps, where the soil is cool 

 and fertile. In such spots it often reaches forty feet in 

 height, and twelve or fifteen inches in diameter. 



Although the growth of the Holly is slow, yet it is 

 always beautiful ; and wt regret that the American sort, 

 which may be easily brought into cultivation, is so very 

 rarely seen in our gardens or grounds. The seeds are 

 easily procured, and if scalded and sowed in autumn, 

 immediately after being gathered, they vegetate freely. 

 For hedges the Holly is altogether unrivalled ; and it was 

 also one of the favorite plants for verdant sculpture, in the 

 ancient style of gardening. Evelyn, in the edition of his 



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