THE HOLLY 15 



certain want of vigour, which is borne out by the 

 fact that variegation is apparently produced by a 

 deficiency of potash in the soil. Whether, as has 

 been suggested, this ornamental partial chlorosis be 

 due to some parasitic alga within the cells of the 

 leaf or not, and whether, as has also been suggested, 

 it be contagious or not, are points yet to be decided. 



The berries are generally red, but sometimes yellow, 

 white, or, without the aid of Jack Frost, black ; and 

 though eaten with impunity by birds, may be said 

 to be poisonous to man, being extremely emetic and 

 cathartic in their effects. Owing, however, to a bitter 

 principle that they contain, known as ilicin, the leaves 

 were formerly used medicinally in cases of fever and 

 rheumatism. It is probably this or an analogous 

 principle that gives its flavour to the yerba or mate 

 tea of South America, which is prepared from the 

 leaves of an allied species (Ilex paraguayem'sis) ; and 

 Holly leaves are still used as tea by the charcoal- 

 burners of the Black Forest. 



Though beautiful anywhere, and especially as a 

 separate specimen standard, it is as a hedge-forming 

 tree that, since the days of Evelyn, the Holly has been 

 most valued. His lamentation over the hedge in his 

 garden at Sayes Court, Deptford, through which Peter 

 the Great amused himself by trundling a wheelbarrow, 

 is well known. " Is there under the heavens," he 

 asks in his " Sylva," " any more glorious and refreshing 

 object than an impregnable hedge of about four hun- 

 dred feet in length, nine feet high, and five in diameter, 

 which I can still show at any time of the year in my 

 ruined garden at Sayes Court (thanks to the Czar of 



