89 WAYSIDE. AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



The Holly (Ilex aquifoliuni). 



The popular knowledge of the Holly has been gained chiefly 

 about Christmas-tide, when its brightly varnished yet repellent 

 leaves and its brilliant berries are much sought for household 

 decoration. To most persons the flower is unknown ; yet if 

 they sought the holly in the woods or hedges any time from 

 May to August they would probably find the white flowers 

 produced in " umbellate cymes " from the axils of the leaves. 

 The calyx is slightly downy, with four or five divisions. The 

 petals are four in number, white, conjoined at their bases, or 

 entirely separate. The stamens are four, one attached to the 

 base of each petal ; stigmas also four, attached to the ovary, 

 without intervening styles. The fruit, with which we are all 

 so familiar by sight, is technically a drupe, in which category 

 are also placed the cherry and the plum, fruits which have the 

 seed enclosed in a hard " stone " (or endocarp], surrounded 

 by a fleshy pericarp. The holly-berries, as the fruits are 

 called (though they in no wise resemble the gooseberry, which 

 is a true berry), contain four of such stones. This is the only 

 British species. 



The name Ilex is said to be of Celtic origin, and derived 

 from ec or ac, a sharp point, but this appears to us very 

 unsatisfactory. Its old English name was holm, a word that 

 has become fixed in some of our place-names for localities 

 where holly is still abundant : such as Holmesdale, Holmwood, 

 and Holmbury, all in Surrey. 



If the smooth grey bark of old hollies be scrutinized closely 

 one may find upon it a number of raised black cuneiform 

 marks, not unlike the characters of the Chinese alphabet. 

 They are really the fruits of a lichen, Graphis elegans. With 

 care the piece of bark containing these curious marks may be 

 cut out without defacing or injuring them. 



