12 FAMILIAR TREES 
boy has followed Turner’s example in the manu- 
facture of birdlime by chewing holly-bark. Under 
the form holm, the name of the Holly enters into 
many of our early English place-names, such as 
Holmesdale and Holmswood ; and no one has ever 
doubted the indigenous character of the species, 
which is still represented by ancient trees in the 
oldest portions of our English forests. 
On the poor, sandy soil of the Millstone Grit, in 
the old forest of Kingswood, now better known as the 
Bristol coalfield, the Hollies flourished so luxuriantly 
that chatty old Aubrey suggests that they derive. 
benefit “from the effluvia of that mineral.” The 
Speech-house in the centre of the Forest of Dean is 
surrounded by ancient Hollies, boughs cut from which 
used, down to within the last seventy years, to take 
the place of the Testament in every oath sworn in the 
Verderer’s court. Evidence has been brought forward 
to show that this Speech-house is a most ancient ren- 
dezvous, and that the Holly was planted as a sacred 
tree round the villages of the Kelts, even on the bleak 
downs of Cornwall. Holly forms a great part of the 
undergrowth in the older parts of Epping Forest, 
where its evergreen foliage excited the admiration 
of Peter Kalm, the pupil of Tinneus, who visited 
England in 1748, and who expressed his regret at 
the absence of this beautiful tree from Sweden. The 
New Forest is also noted for its Hollies. One of the 
largest individuals in the kingdom is probably that at 
Claremont, eighty feet in height, which, considering 
the extremely slow growth of the tree, may be a relic 
of the primeval forest of North Surrey. 
