I. Aquifolium : History, etc. 



Age 



The "Common Holly" is naturally a long 

 lived tree. The exact, or even approximate age 

 to which it will live under favourable circum- 

 stances is not known, but there is no doubt of 

 trees living from 250 to 300 years. London gives 

 a quotation from Pliny bearing on the age of 

 Hollies as follows : "Tiburtus built the city of 

 Tibur near three Holly- trees, over which he had 

 observed the flight of birds that pointed out the 

 spot whereon the Gods had fixed for its erection, 

 and that these trees were standing in his own 

 time and must therefore be upwards of 1200 

 years old." He also tells us that "there was a 

 Holly-tree then growing near the Vatican in 

 Rome on which was fixed a brass plate with an 

 inscription engraved in Tuscan letters, and that 

 this tree was older than Rome itself, which must 

 have been more than 800 years." Book XVI. 

 Chap. 44. 



Dimensions 



In the description of one of these trees Pliny 

 says, "the trunk measured 35 feet in circumference, 

 and that it sent out ten branches of such magnitude 

 that each might pass for a tree, and that the single 

 tree resembled a small wood." 



London says that the largest tree in England 



39 



