2 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



confirmed the fact; for although the 

 four stamens in each flower are appar- 

 ently perfect, in certain trees they are 

 proved to be functionally abortive, 

 containing no fertilizing pollen. In 

 such flowers the receptive stigmas 

 must be impregnated with potent 

 pollen from adjacent trees, the flowers 

 of which have perfect stamens ; and in 

 such flowers the ovaries are found to 

 be incapable of fecundation, and, of 

 course, no fruit is produced. In such 

 flowers as the holly, insects are the 

 agency employed for this transfer of 

 the pollen, and as the blossoms are 

 neither highly coloured nor endowed 

 with perfume, the attraction is fur- 

 nished by large stores of nectar, which 

 is freely secreted by the flowers. It 

 seems indisputable that cross -fertiliza- 

 tion is conducive to increased robust- 

 ness and vigour in the vegetable king- 

 dom, and nature, ever ready to econo- 

 mise her forces, has dispensed with the 

 formation of pollen where it was non- 

 essential : hence we find an increasing 

 number of plants in which the sexes 

 are separated, and the holly may be 

 regarded as one in which the transition 

 stage has quite lately passed into com- 

 plete separation. When allowed per- 

 fect freedom of growth, the holly 

 becomes a small tree of twenty to 

 thirty feet in height, throwing off 

 numerous branches and forming a 

 dense bush of conical outline. In this 

 state, as in the ivy, a change in the 



formation of the leaves is visible, the 

 upper ones becoming quite entire and 

 smooth, without the characteristic 

 spines of the lower leaves. This is 

 happily expressed by the poet Southey 



" Below a circling fence, its leaves are seen, 



Wrinkled and keen ; 

 No grazing cattle thro' their prickly round 



Can reach to wound ; 

 But, as they grow where nothing is to fear, 

 Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves 

 appear." 



The leaf of the ordinary holly is an 

 admirable defensive organ : the edge 

 is thickened into a continuous rim of 

 cartilaginous tissue from which the 

 hardened spines project to each side 

 alternately like the teeth of a large 

 saw or the spikes of a cheval-de-frise. 

 In the variety called the hedgehog 

 holly, not only the margin, but the 

 whole surface of the leaf is studded 

 with spines. This abnormal state is 

 attributed to a hypertrophy of the 

 tissue, that is, an exuberance of growth 

 as exhibited in the puckered wrinkles 

 of savoys, or in the animal world in 

 the exaggerated muscles of cyclists 

 and pedestrian runners. In many 

 localities the spineless leaved trees are 

 known as A-hollies, to distinguish 

 them from the common form which 

 are called /^-hollies, and the leaves of 

 which are used by the rural maidens 

 to fortell the date of their weddings by 

 counting the number of spines thus — 

 "This year, next year, sometime, 

 never." The spineless leaves of the 



