HOLLY FAMILY 
The custom of employing holly and other plants for decorative purposes at 
Christmas, is one of considerable antiquity, and has been regarded as a survival 
of the usages of the Roman Saturnalia, or of an old Teutonic practice of hang- 
ing the interior of dwellings with evergreens as a refuge for sylvan spirits from 
the inclemency of the weather, —&nceve. Britannica, 
In English poetry and English stories the Holly is insep- 
arably connected with the merry-making and greetings which 
gather around the Christmas tide. The custom is also ours 
anda few days before Christmas the shops are filled with 
holly and mistletoe for the annual decoration of homes and 
churches. 
The severity of our climate forbids the European Holly, 
with its deep green, glossy foliage and coral berries, to live 
here except upon a most precarious footing. But our Amer- 
ican Holly makes an excellent second in the class where the 
European is first, for it very closely resembles the foreign 
species. The leaves are similar in outline and toothed and 
bristled very much in the same way, but they are a paler 
green, and although the surface is polished and shining it 
does not in brilliancy quite equal its European cousin. 
The American Holly is a handsome tree and worthy of far 
more attention from landscape gardeners than it gets. Pos- 
sibly the objection to it is its slowness of growth. The tree 
is low, the branches almost horizontal, and the gray bark in 
old trees becomes the willing host of great numbers of gray 
and white and bluish lichens which make the tree look ven- 
erable before its time. Its pretty white flowers appear in 
clusters either in the axils of the leaves or scattered along 
the young shoots. The berries are scarlet, contain four 
stony seeds and remain on the tree into the winter. The 
flesh of the berries is so thin and aromatic that the birds do 
not seem to care for it. 
The Holly is usually propagated by seeds, or young plants 
are taken from the woods, As the seeds do not germinate 
until the second year, transplanting the wild young trees is 
the best way of obtaining them. This should be done in 
the spring before growth begins. 
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