SMALL TREES, SHRUBS, AND COPPICE. 



47 



our earliest writers on plants, calls it the "Holy tree." 



In Germany, Denmark, and Sweden it is " Christ- 



dorn," or a modified form of that name, evidently 



indicating its religious associations. Phillips says, 



" The great feast of Saturn (in ancient Britain) was 



held in December ; and as the oaks of this country 



were then without 



leaves, the priests 



obliged the people to 



bring in boughs and 



sprigs of evergreens 



and Christians, on the 



twenty-fifth of the same 



month, did the like; 



from whence originated 



the present custom of 



placing holly and other 



evergreens in our 



churches and houses, 



to show the feast of 



Christmas is arrived." No evergreen is so much 



esteemed for Christmas decoration as the holly, and 



the berries are in some places known as Christmas 



berries. 



Pliny says that Tiburtus built the city of Tibur near 

 three holly trees, and that these trees were standing in 

 his own time, and must therefore have been one thou- 

 sand two hundred years old. He also says that there 

 was a holly tree then growing near the Vatican in Rome, 

 on which was fixed a plate of brass with an inscription 

 in Tuscan, and that this tree was older than Rome 

 itself, which must have been more than eight hundred 



HOLLY LEAF. 



