2. UOI.LV. 



Description. — Common Holly is a small evergreen tree, vary- 

 ing in height from four to thirty feet, or more, much branched, 

 with the young shoots very smooth, pliant, and of a fine green 

 colour ; the bark is ash-coloured, very compact ; the wood is hard, 

 heavy, yellowish-white, darker towards the centre. The leaves 

 are persistent, alternate, petiolate, coriaceous, of a deep shining 

 green colour, ovate, undulated, and furnished at the margins with 

 strong sharp spines.* The flowers are small, numerous, on short 

 peduncles, somewhat umbellate, and spring from the axils of the 

 leaves. The calyx is small, slightly hairy, and mostly four- toothed. 

 The corolla is rotate, in four deep divisions, of a whitish colour. 

 The stamens are four (sometimes five, and then the other parts 

 of the flower have a corresponding development), spreading, with 

 subulate filaments, attached to the base of the corolla. The germen 

 is sessile, four-celled, and terminated by four sessile obtuse stigmas. 

 (The pistil in some flowers is altogether wanting.) The fruit is a 

 shining scarlet berry, nearly spherical, and includes four, bony, 

 channelled nuts, each containing a single seed. Plate 26, fig. 1, 

 (a) an entire flower, of the natural size; (A) calyx and pistil ; (c) 

 the berry, with part of the fleshy substance removed, to show the 

 four nuts ; (d) a nut, isolated. 



Common Holly is frequent in many parts of Britain, — in woods, 

 coppices, and hedge-rows, especially in a light or gravelly soil, in 

 sheltered situations ; and, if not truly indigenous, it has been 



* It is a common opinion that the upper leaves of Holly are invariably 

 smooth, entire, and unarmed, while the lower ones are edged with sharp 

 spines : thus the poet Southey— 



" Below a circling fence, its leaves are seen 

 Wrinkled and keen ; 



No grazing cattle through their prickly round 

 Can reach to wound ; 



But, as they grow where nothing is to fear, 

 Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear." 



We would not affirm that such is not the case ; but we believe this differ- 

 ence in the foliage is produced rather by natural than preternatural 

 causes. All the leaves are at first tender and unarmed, and often entire, 

 or nearly so ; but as their growth advances, they become more or less 

 spiny. The topmost leaves being the youngest, they appear constantly 

 smooth and defenceless, while the lower are spiny, not necessarily from 

 their situation, but in consequence of maturity ; moreover, on the lowermost 

 branches, unarmed leaves may be found taking the place of those which 

 have fallen off. These remarks will only apply to vigorous plants ; when 

 the tree becomes old, it appears to lose the power of producing spines. 



