CALIFORNIA HOLLY (Heteromeles arbutifolia, Roemer). 

 Flowers w hite, small, borne in dense terminal panicles. Leaves 

 evergreen, leathery, rigid and rather glossy; 2 to 4 inches 

 long, oblong and more or less saw-toothed. A shrub or small 

 tree from 6 to 25 feet high, blooming from May until August, 

 according to locality, common in the chaparral belt of the 

 Coast Ranges of California. 



Better known than the flowers of the California Holly are 

 its cheerful red berries, which abundantly adorn the little 

 trees in late autumn, and are extensively used for Christmas 

 decoration on the Pacific Coast. The ?ommon name is not 

 happy, for the plant is not at all related to the true holly. The 

 English, who have cultivated it to some extent in their gardens, 

 are more accurate in calling it California May-bush, the May- 

 bush or May being the English hawthorn which is of the same 

 family with our plant. Christmas-berry is another popular 

 name, and Spanish Californians, who found some use for the 

 berries as the basis of a crink, called it toybn, The Indians 

 made a regular article of diet of the berries, toasting them first 

 over hot coals, or boiling them. 



