
Mrs. Kathleen Meserve, the creative 
hybridizer and originator of this new 
race of hollies. 

Sometime ago, we introduced you to two distinct Blue Hollies— Blue Boy and Blue Girl. They were indeed 
unique, they were a new race of plants and they were exciting. Today we are offering you Blue Prince, Blue 
Princess, and Blue Angel which are like no other Ilex we know. These too were originated by Mrs. Kathleen 
Meserve and are of the new Botanical species Ilex x meserveae. 
While Blue Boy and Blue Girl were new and distinctive, the creative and talented hand of Mrs. Meserve has 
now brought the Blue Hollies into their own. These new Hollies are even more ornamental with their dense 
glossy bluish green leaves, their distinctive bluish stems, and abundant deep red berries, and their unusual 
hardiness. Blue Hollies are known to be hardy as far north as Minnesota and in the rugged climate of 
Nebraska. 
Of course, this new species did not come about by accident. When a new Botanical species is created, 
something important is going on . . . and doubly so when the result is named for the person who accomplished 
it. That is just what happened in the case of this new holly species which Dr. Shin-Ying Hu of the Arnold 
Arboretum has named Ilex x meserveae. 
The story of Ilex x meserveae began in 1946, and we have not seen the end of it by any means as Mrs. 
Meserve has many outstanding hollies still under test. She is constantly making crosses, testing her hollies 
and, of course, watching them very closely. Her love affair with nature began when her “‘city’’ family moved 
to a Long Island, New York estate. Mrs. Meserve became fascinated by this country life and all the beauty 
that surrounded her. She immediately noticed the native American Holly growing so abundantly. An intense 
person who ‘“‘becomes involved,”’ she researched this holly, visited arboreta, nurseries, estates and began a 
wide and varied collection which naturally led to trying her hand at breeding holly. As her interest grew, she 
discovered the luxuriant and attractive English Holly. Of course, she quickly discovered, as many of us have, 
that this beauty does not like our climate. Not easily discouraged, Mrs. Meserve set her goal to create a holly 
that would have all the wonderful qualities of the English Holly and none of its shortcomings. After quite a 
search, she found what she felt could be the rugged hardy male to mate with the English Holly—Rugosa 
Holly. She obtained seeds through the Arnold Arboretum and 
grew her own plants for breeding. 
The first of these hybrid hollies, introduced in 1964, were Blue 
Boy and Blue Girl. They were unique and hardy. Of course, they 
were extremely decorative and Blue Girl produced berries in great 
profusion. 
Even after the success of Blue Boy and Blue Girl, evaluation 
and testing continued to discover hollies that would be even more 
distinctive. In 1972, Blue Prince was introduced—one of the very 
few boy hollies that is truly ornamental and produces tremendous 
quantities of pollen. In 1973, Blue Angel and Blue Princess were 
introduced. They are both Blue Hollies, they are girls, they are 
very ornamental, and that is where the similarity ends. Each has 
attributes the other does not. 
It took years of breeding and evaluation to produce the Blue 
Hollies. Ilex x meserveae is truly an American success story of a 
delightful imaginative woman who knew what she wanted to do 
and made her mark in the world of Horticulture. 
é 

