HOLLY FAMILY 



j^riiit. — Berry-like drupe, one-fourth to five-sixteenths of an 

 inch in diameter, globular or slightly depressed, solitary or in 

 clusters of two or three, scarlet, rarely yellow ; sits in the per- 

 sistent calyx and is crowned with the remnants of the stigma. 

 Pulp yellowish, nauseous ; seeds three to eight. Remains long 

 after the leaves have fallen. September. 



And I will trust that He who heeds 

 The life that hides in mead and wold, 

 Who hangs yon alder's crimson beads, 

 And stains these mosses green and gold, 

 Will still, as He hath done, incline 

 His gracious care to me and mine. 



— John G. Whittier. 



* * * With coral beads, the prim black alders shine. 



— James Russell Lowell. 



I see where a mouse, which had a hole under a stump, has eaten out 

 clean the inside of the little seeds of the Prinos verticillata berries. What 

 pretty fruit for them, these bright berries ! They run up the twigs in the 

 night and gather this shining fruit, take out the small seeds and eat these 

 kernels at the entrance to their burrows. The ground is strewn with them. 



— Henry D. Thoreau. 



Notes written November 19, 1857. 



One often feels that a plant is not without honor save 

 in its own country. Here is a native Holly which 

 equals if it does not surpass in brilliancy and beauty of 

 fruit coloring any imported plant in our garden, and 

 yet it is virtually unknown. Its charm lies in its abun- 

 dant scarlet berries which cling to the branches in the 

 axil of every leaf and after the leaves fall still cling to 

 the naked stems. At the north they fall by midwinter, 

 in the south they remain until pushed off by the grow- 

 ing buds of spring. The birds, it seems, will have none 

 of them, the thin flesh is too nauseous, and the nutlets 

 are too many ; but the field mice are not so particular. 



In northern Ohio the Winter-berry adorns the 



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