TETRANDRIA. TETRAGYNIA. Potamogeton. 255 
Wiston, near Buers, Suffolk; Dale, in R. Syn.; and Wardour Castle, Wilts. 
Ray. In the hedge by the road side leading from Edinburgh to Queens- 
ferry, about a mile and half from the Ferry. E.) S. April—June. 
POTAMOGETON.* Cal. none: Petals four: Style none : 
Seeds four, (naked, sessile. E.) 
P. na'tans. Upper leaves oblong egg-shaped, on leaf-stalks; floating, 
(coriaceous; lower leaves strap-shaped, membranous, sessile. E.) 
for knives, and cogs for mill-wheels, are made of it, (as also hones for wetting of razors. E.) 
The holly is peculiarly valuable, as flourishing with great beauty under tbe shade and drip 
of the more lofty deciduous trees. (Holly trees are difficult to remove: the autumn is the 
most favourable season for transplanting them. The decoration of houses and churches 
with Holly branches at Christmas, is supposed by some antiquaries to be derived from 
Druidism, and in the darker ages designed to appease certain sylvan sprites, by affording 
them shelter till a more genial season should revive their favourite haunts. Without 
attempting to refute so puerile a conceit as this motive would appear to involve, it seems 
generally admitted, as Mr. Phillips observes, that the connection of evergreen sprigs and 
boughs with religious rites may without difficulty be traced to heathen worship ; and this tree 
being peculiarly appropriate to such purposes, was originally denominated Holy, In allusion 
to the enduring nature of the plant, branches were sent by the Romans to their friends 
with new years’ gifts, as emblematical of a lasting attachment. The finest young plants 
are too often cut to make coachmen’s whips, or large Holly trees would not be so scarce. 
When growing luxuriantly in shrubberies, their constant foliage and shelter render them 
highly advantageous. Holly may be trained as a shorn hedge to fifteen or even twenty feet 
in height. At Tunbridge the wood is manufactured into various fancy articles. The berries, 
like those of Hawthorn, usually remain in the earth two years before they germinate, unless 
they have passed through the stomach of fowls, when they vegetate the first year. 
To give them a similar fermentation by art, we are recommended to mix wetted bran with 
the seeds, and when in ten days it begins to ferment, to sprinkle the mass with warm 
water; after which, in about a month, the berries will begin to vegetate, and be fit 
for sowing; thus may young plants be raised in one year instead of two. Though Hollies 
are generally considered of slow growth, Evelyn raised hedges four feet high in four years, 
from seedlings taken out of the woods. E.) It has been remarked by Linnaeus that the lower 
branches within reach of cattle bear thorny leaves, whilst the upper ones, which stand in 
need of no such defence, are without thorns; (a striking example of design in nature, of 
which the poet Southey happily avails himself: 
“ O reader! hast thou ever stood to see 
The Holly tree ? 
The eye that contemplates it well, perceives 
Its glossy leaves 
Ordered by an intelligence so wise, 
As might confound the atheist’s sophistries. 
Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen 
Wrinkled and keen ; 
No grazing cattle through their prickly round 
Can reach to wound; 
But as they grow where nothing is to fear , 
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.” 
The leaves of the Holly, by means of the impenetrable varnish that is spread over them, 
or rather polished surface, are long impervious to the common agents of dissolution ; but 
their destruction is at times accelerated by the minute excrescent fungi, which break the 
surface, and admit humidity. Vid. Joura. Nat. PI. v. f. 2. The dead leaves are frequently 
infested with Cleuihospora (Spkceria)phacidioides. Grev. Scot. Crypt. 253. “ Orbicular, 
plane, black, shining, the perithecia bursting at length by three or five short pale segments ; 
sporidia somewhat cylindrical, escaping.” E.) 
* (From 7 tot«/ao;, a river; and ytirwv, near : alluding to its aquatic station. E.) 
