ILLUSTRATIONS. 387 



they are provided with strong coarse very prickly teeth. The 

 leaves of the Holly however are not always prickly, especially 

 on the upper part of the tree_, which fact has led to the poetic 

 fancy of Southey, who writes — 



" Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen 



Wrinkled and keen ; 

 No grazing cattle through their prickly romad 



Can reach to wound ; 

 But as they grow where nothing is to fear, 

 Smooth and unarm' d the pointless leaves appear." 



The flowers grow in dense clusters in the axils of the leaves ; 

 they are white, with a calyx of four, or rarely of five small 

 teeth ; a regular raonopetalous corolla, with a short tube, and 

 a limb deeply divided into four or five segments; as many 

 stamens as there are lobes of calyx or corolla; and a four- 

 celled ovary crowned by four minute sessile stigmas. The 

 ovary becomes a bright red (sometimes yellow) berry, or rather 

 a small drupe enclosing four nuts, containing each a single seed. 

 These coral- coloured berries of the Holly give the plant a 

 brilliant appearance at a time when there is little of brilliancy 

 left to us in the vegetable world : 



" Summer trees are pretty — very, 

 And I love them all ; 

 But this Holly's glistening berry 



None of them excel. 

 While the fir can warm the landscape, 



And the ivy clothes the wall, 

 There are simny days in winter 



After all !" 



. The Mistletoe* is one of the Calyciflores, and a member of 

 the Loranthaceous family. It is a singular plant, a real 

 parasite, growing on, and deriving its nourishment from a 



* Viscum album — Plate 24 D. 



