THE HOLLY. 



Ilex Aquifolium. 



Natural Order — Ilicine^. 

 Class — Tetrandria. Order — Tetragynia. 



This incomparable tree/' as Evelyn most 

 justly calls it, is the most important of the English 

 evergreens. Whether we wander in the woods, 

 when all is bare and stark save the trunks of trees, 

 which are clothed with the borrowed verdure of 

 the Ivy, and save the dark but cheerful array of 

 armed leaves presented by the Holly ; or whether, 

 in the bright leafy days of summer, we detect it 

 far off in the depths of the forest, reflecting light 

 from its polished mail, as brilliantly as if every 

 leaf were a mirror, — at any season we should be 

 sorry to miss it from our woodlands. But, wel- 

 come as the Holly is at all seasons, it belongs 

 more particularly to winter, for then the bright, 

 joyous appearance of its crimson berries, which 

 from our earliest years have been associated in our 

 minds with the festivities of Christmas, render 

 the tree doubly conspicuous. In one respect, 

 what may be said of the Hawthorn is true also 

 of the Holly ; both these trees are emblematical 

 of the season in which they are most beautiful, 

 for it is quite as common to hear the Holly called 

 " Christmas," as the Hawthorn May." Indeed 

 its ordinary name appears to point to the use 

 to which, from a very early period, it was applied, 



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