38 ILEX. 



secondary tree or merely as an underwood shrub, added 

 to its being of indigenous growth, are circumstances of 

 sufficient importance to justify our admitting it into a work 

 like the present, and to place it among the British forest- 

 trees of the second rank. There are many, we believe, 

 who are scarcely aware of the size to which a Holly will 

 grow under favourable circumstances, and who only judge 

 of the plant as they have seen it in shrubberies, hedges, or 

 as an underwood overtopped and shaded by the giants of 

 the forest ; such will be surprised to learn that there are 

 many examples of Hollies in England and Scotland, that 

 have attained a height of forty, forty-five, and even fifty 

 feet, with trunks varying from two to four feet in diame- 

 ter.* Such instances, we admit, are not very common, and 

 only met with in woods where the Holly is indigenous, and 

 has not been cramped in its growth by other trees, or 

 where it has been planted and afterwards treated as a 

 tree, and not as an underwood evergreen. 



The climate of England and Scotland appears to be par- 

 ticularly favourable to the growth of the Holly, for, although 

 it occupies a pretty extensive geographical distribution 

 throughout the middle and southern parts of Europe, in 

 no part does it attain so large a size as it does with us. 

 Its indigenous origin is satisfactorily proved by its preva- 

 lence in the remains of all our natural woods and abori- 

 ginal forests ; thus, in England it abounds in that of Need- 

 wood, in Staffordshire, the New Forest in Hampshire, and 

 many others. In Scotland few natural woods are unen- 

 livened by its presence, and though its usual form is that of 

 an underwood to oak, ash, and other trees of a quicker 

 and more exalted growth, it frequently assumes the form 



* We refer our readers to the dimensions of various Holly-trees recorded in 

 Loudon's " Arboretum Britannicum." 



