Ilex 



1719 



28 ft. long, as clean and smooth as a pillar, and holding a girth of 6^ ft. throughout 

 its length. 



Christison records * a holly at Fullarton House, near Troon, 30 to 40 ft. high, 

 with a bole 2 6 ft. long and 11 ft. 9 in. in girth, in 1891. Loudon ' mentions a holly 

 at Blair Drummond which grew in sandy loam, and measured 59 ft. by 8 ft., but it is 

 no longer living. 



Sir Joseph Sabine in Trans. Hort. Soc. vii. 194 (1830), gives a long account of 

 some remarkable holly hedges in Scotland, of which those at Tyninghame, East 

 Lothian, the seat of the Earl of Haddington, extended altogether to a length of 

 2952 yards. The most striking were those on both sides of a grass walk 36 feet 

 wide, extending from the North Berwick road to the mansion. This walk was 743 

 yards long, and the hedges 15 feet high, and 11 feet broad at the base ; another was 

 170 yards long, 25 feet high, and 13 feet wide. Most of these were planted by 

 Thomas, the sixth Earl, in 1712 ; but when I visited the place in 1905 I found that 

 they had become old and ragged, many of the bushes having died. The largest 

 tree that Sabine mentions here in 1830 was 54 ft. by 5 ft. 3 in. at three feet from 

 the ground, but I measured one no less than 71 ft. by 4 ft. 9 in. drawn up among 

 beech trees, but not a handsome specimen. 



The most remarkable groups of hollies I have seen anywhere are on the 

 holly bank at Gordon Castle, growing on a moist gravelly old red sandstone 

 soil facing west. These are in clumps, and many have evidently sprung 

 from the same stool. Sabine counted seventy-three groups, containing 508 trees, 

 of which eighty-seven had clean trunks from 8 to 14 ft. long. The largest he 

 measured, which grew at the bottom of the bank, were 52 ft. by 5 ft. 7 in. with a 

 bole of 10^ ft., and 43 ft. 9 in. by 4 ft. 9 in. with a bole of 8^ ft. He mentions one 

 clump which then contained fifty-five trees growing on an area 134 ft. in circum- 

 ference, and from i^ to 3J ft. in girth, which I believe to be the same that I saw in 

 April 1904, not knowing that it had been previously described. I counted fifty-four 

 trees 30 to 40 ft. high, averaging about 3 ft. in girth, and containing about 6 to 7 feet 

 of timber, so that on an area of about a quarter of an acre there must have been over 

 300 feet of timber.* Plate 377 gives a very good idea of this wonderful group, which 

 appeared to me, as it did to Sir J. Sabine, to have been the work of nature, but Mr. 

 Webster, the gardener, could give me no record of their age and origin. The Duke 

 of Richmond, however, tells me that they were flourishing in 1760, as they are 

 alluded to in an account of Gordon Castle written at that time. 



At Colinton House, Midlothian, the seat of J. Erskine Guild, Esq., there are 

 some holly hedges, supposed to have been planted between 1670 and 1680, which 

 are still in good health ; and as I am informed by the gardener, Mr. Bruce, are 



' Trans. Bot. Soc. Edinburgh, xx. 387 (1896). This tree was photographed by Paxton, who presented in 1894 to the 

 library of the Edinburgh Botanic Garden a book of photographs and measurements of thirty remarkable trees in Ayrshire. 



' Renwick, in Trans. Nat. Hist. Soc. Glasgow, vii. pt. iii. 263 (1904), gives the girth in 1903 as iij ft. at five feet from 

 the ground. 



3 Gard. Mag. xvii. 507 (1 841), where a list of measurements in 1836 of all the remarkable trees at Blair Drummond 



is given. 



' In Gard. Chron. iii. 51 (1875), Mr. Webster says that one of the trees here measures 7 ft. 9 in. at three feet, and 

 7i ft. at ten feet, and another 8^ ft. in the narrowest part of the trunk two feet from the ground. 



