EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
279 
The American Holly Tree. Ilex. 
Nat. Ord. Aquifoliacese. Lin. Syst. Dicecia, Tetrandria. 
The European Holly is certainly one of the evergreen 
glories of the English gardens. There, its deep green, glos- 
sy foliage, and bright coral berries, which hang on for a 
long time, are seen enlivening the pleasure-grounds and 
shrubberies throughout the whole of that leafless and in- 
active period in vegetation — winter. It is also, in our 
mother tongue, inseparably connected with the delightful 
associations of merry Christmas gambols and feastings, when 
both the churches and the dwelling-houses, are decorated 
with its boughs. We have much to regret, therefore, in the 
severity of our winters, which will not permit the European 
Holly to flourish in the middle or eastern states, as a hardy 
tree. South of Philadelphia, it may become acclimated ; 
but it appears to suffer greatly farther north. 
A beautiful succedanum, however, may, we believe, be 
found in the American Holly, ( Ilex opaca.) which indeed 
very closely resembles the foreign species in almost every 
particular. The leaves are waved or irregular in surface 
and outline, though not so much so as those of the latter, 
and their colour is a much lighter shade of green. Like 
those of the foreign plant, they are armed on the edges with 
thorny prickles, and the surface is brilliant and polished. 
The American Holly is seen in the greatest perfection on the 
eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia, and the lower part 
of New-Jersey. There it thrives best upon loose, dry and 
gravelly soils. Michaux says it is also common through all 
the extreme southern states, and in West Tennessee, in 
