White and Greenish 



American Holly 



{Ilex opiu-a) Holly family 



Flowers — Very small, greenish or yellowish white, from 3 to 10 

 staminate ones in a short cyme ; fertile llowers usually soli- 

 tary, scattered. Sfein : A small tree of very slow growth, rarely 

 attaining any great height. Leaves: Evergreen, thick, rigid, 

 glossy, ellipitical, scalloped edged, spiny-tipped. Fruit: 

 Round, red berries. 



Preferred Habitat — Moist woods and thickets. 



Floweriiis^ Season — April — ^June. 



Distrihiition — Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, west to Texas, chiefly 

 near the coast and south of New York. 



Happily we continue to borrow all the beautiful Old World 

 associations, poetical and legendary, that cluster about the holly 

 at Christmas time, although our native tree furnishes most of our 

 holiday decorations. So far back as Pliny's day, the European 

 holly had all manner of supernatural qualities attributed to it : its 

 insignificant little flowers caused water to freeze, he tells us ; be- 

 cause it was believed to repel lightning, the Romans planted it 

 near their houses ; and a branch of it thrown after any refractory 

 animal, even if it did not hit him, would subdue him instantly, 

 and cause him to lie down meekly beside the stick! Can it be 

 that the Italian peasants, who still believe cattle kneel in their 

 stalls at midnight on the anniversary of Jesus' birth, decorate the 

 mangers on Christmas eve with holly, among other plants, because 

 of a survival of this old pagan notion about its subduing effect on 

 animals .'' 



Would that the beautiful holly of English gardens (/. Aqiii- 

 folinni), more glossy and spiny of leaf and redder of berry than our 

 own, might live here ; but it is too tender to withstand New Eng- 

 land winters, and the hot, dry summers farther south soon prove 

 fatal. Ilex was the ancient name, not of these plants, but of the 

 holly oak. 



The Mountain Holly {llicioides mucrouata) — Neiiiopaiithes 

 Canadensis of Gray — a shrub of the northern swamps, about six 

 feet high, and by no means confined to mountainous regions, 

 since it is also abundant in the middle West, has smooth-edged, 

 elliptic, petioled leaves, ash-colored bark, small, solitary, narrow- 

 petalled staminate and pistillate fiowers on long, threadlike ped- 

 icels from the leaf-axils in May. In August dull pale-red berries 

 appear. Darwin proved that seed set with the help of pollen 

 brought from distinct plants produces offspring that vanquishes 

 the offspring of seed set with pollen brought from another flower 

 on the same plant in the struggle for existence. Thus we see, in 



213 



