Keegan : The Holly. 



57 



g-arden that the perfect insects are found in early June congregating- 

 and mating. As the two plants are often a considerable distance apart, 

 the insect is possibly in its flight directed by scent. 



Ceuthorrhynchidius cherrolati. After the great flood of 2nd November 

 1898, the meadow below Pelter Bridge was washed bare, and the galls 

 on the roots of the Yarrow plant, in which this insect passes the first 

 stages of its existence, were revealed. 



THE HOLLY (ILEX AQUIFOLIUM). 



P. Q. KEEGAN, LL.D., 

 Pa tie rd ale, Tf 'est morla n d. 



A NATIVE tree, btit really an emigrant from Southern Europe, 

 the Holly has attracted universal attention. The ' hedge of 

 Hollies dark and tall,' how grateful its impervious screen when 

 ' frosty winds howl from the north ! ' In the dreary depths of 

 wintry gloom it preserves a glossy brilliancy of green endearing 

 to the hour surpassed by none — nay, not approached by any 

 other of our cold-sustaining plants. The vivid coral redness of 

 its berries, too, strike light amid the woodland vacancies or 

 within the gardens dull and despoiled every one. Judging by 

 externals, the Holly is forsooth a fine organism, and that it 

 is fine internally as well the follow^ing account may serve to 

 demonstrate. 



Stem. — The wood is hard and heavy (specific gravity 0*76 

 to 0*95), very homogeneous and uniformly white, with no 

 distinction between alburnum and duramen. The medullary 

 rays are in four to eight rows, some of them being 1*5 mm. 

 high ; the vessels are very narrow (35 /x in radial width), of 

 about equal size, forming a single row at the commencement of 

 each annual ring, but elsewhere grouped in a radial series of 

 from five to twelve, their walls have small bordered pits and 

 scalariform thickening ; the fibres are very homogenous, of oval 

 or squarish section, have thick pitted and striated walls, and are 

 intermixed with numerous little groups of very fine parenchyma- 

 cells. The bark is composed of a medley of large, thin-walled 

 cells, arranged tangentially, which are interspersed throughout 

 with large and small patches and ilots of sclerous cells rich 

 in crystals, and also with well-developed sieve-tubes which 

 remain active for several years ; the small bundles of primary 

 liber fibres are separated from the soft liber by three or four 

 layers of parenchyma cells, and at the external limit of the latter 

 there is ultimately formed a compact mass or continuous ring of 



1905 Februar)' i. 



