December, 1917 
39 
Where They Come From , JVhat They Are Like , and How to 
Grozv Them—The Origin of Holly’s Use as a Christmas Symbol 
Ilex verticilata, our well 
known winterberry, 
succeeds from Florida 
to Canada. Its large 
berries are bright red 
The holly of Christmas 
decorations is Ilex 
opaca, the main supply 
of which comes from 
the southern states 
The inkberry's black 
fruit, sturdy growth 
and evergreen foliage 
make it desirable 
T HE ceremonial and festival use of certain 
plants is very ancient—as ancient per¬ 
haps as the race of man itself. With the de¬ 
velopment of human consciousness and of the 
great mythological conceptions that marked 
the emergence of human beings from the dim 
regions that veil their beginnings, certain 
plants took their places as symbols of, or be¬ 
came sacred to, certain of 
the gods. Thus there 
grew to be associated 
with them certain dis¬ 
tinct attributes. 
Among them all, there 
appears to be not one 
whose history in this re¬ 
gard is of greater an¬ 
tiquity than the holly’s. 
Though not set apart as 
the symbol of any special 
deity, it nevertheless 
seems always to have had 
its special significance of 
good will. Pagan Rome 
used it at the great festi¬ 
val of the Saturnalia— 
that wonderful Roman 
holiday that came, as you 
will remember, just a week earlier 
than our Christmas comes today; 
and during the week given up to 
the celebration of this, branches of 
holly were exchanged as good will 
offerings, between even those bar¬ 
barous tribes of Europe who had 
in common only their allegiance to 
the Roman Empire. 
This festival celebrated the re¬ 
vered memory of Saturnus, that 
deity-king who appeared amongst 
the people and taught them agri¬ 
culture and gardening and vine 
culture, thus raising them from 
rude barbarism to a state of order¬ 
ly, peaceful industry; and though 
its latter days of unrestrained li¬ 
cense brought the very name “Sat¬ 
urnalia” into infamous association 
in the minds of all of those who 
have lived since, it was in the be¬ 
ginning a religious holiday—the 
greatest holiday of the Roman year 
—when all inequalities of social 
position were abated. Servants 
dressed in their masters’ clothes 
and met them in familiar inter¬ 
course, and all men associated as 
equals, apparently in an even finer 
spirit of brotherhood than our 
Christmas brings today. 
The Tree of Kindliness 
I speak of this to emphasize what 
is to me a striking circumstance— 
the association of the holly from 
time immemorial with that spirit of 
human fellowship, of friendliness, of kindli¬ 
ness that rose in the heart of the ancient Roman 
at the memory of the beneficent teacher and 
ruler whose reign was commonly extolled as 
the golden age. It was the spirit that rises 
in the hearts of men today as they celebrate 
the birth of the Nazarene. 
The shining leaves and scarlet berries of 
holly are much more than a Christmas decora¬ 
tion, with this knowledge of their ages of sig¬ 
nificance unfolded to our modern contempla¬ 
tion of them. There is a strange power in 
such age-old symbols! Small wonder that the 
To the left of the stepping stones is a mixed planting 
in which holly leaved barberry is used effectively 
Holly Names 
All hollies are, of course, ilex; but 
this is not to say that the ilex of 
romantic association—t he great 
ilexes of Italy and the southern lands 
—are hollies. No, indeed! Here 
we have again one of those subtle 
plays on a name which the real scien¬ 
tific botanist seems to delight in, 
above all else. 
The ilex of romance and somber, 
picturesque association is an ever¬ 
green ojik (Quercus ilex), the holm 
oak of southern Europe, also called 
the holly oak sometimes. It grows 
with the holly, wild, in southern 
Europe; and it was first designated 
by the name ilex, and is still so 
called. Holly was called anciently 
Aquifolium, from acus, needle, with 
folium, leaf—a happily descriptive 
title as anyone handling it is invari¬ 
ably willing to testify. When it was 
discovered, however, that the ilex 
was an oak, it could of course no 
longer be called an ilex, at least not 
officially. It had to be rechristened 
Quercus, because that was the an¬ 
cient Latin name for oak trees gen- 
(Continued on page 78) 
Mahonia has leaves 
much like the holly’s, 
though it belongs to 
a different family 
sight of even the smallest sprig of holly glad¬ 
dens the soul. Let us have much of it, every¬ 
where—garlands and wreaths and branches; 
there cannot be too much, if our hearts are open 
to what it will bring. 
But all of this has to do with just one kind 
of holly, or at most, a few closely allied kinds; 
and there are altogether something more than 
one hundred and seven¬ 
ty-five. I must be get¬ 
ting on with my story! 
The holly of past and 
present significance is 
Ilex aquifolium, which 
is the European species, 
native to the Mediter¬ 
ranean and middle sec¬ 
tions of the continent, to 
western Asia and to 
China. This is what 
botanists call an ex¬ 
tremely variable species; 
which means that it pro¬ 
duces varieties freely, 
which are yet not suffi¬ 
ciently differentiated 
from the type to be re¬ 
garded as separate spe¬ 
cies. There are certain differences 
of fundamentals necessary in order 
for a separate species to be recog¬ 
nized, while differences of super¬ 
ficial character serve only to place 
the plant showing them as a varia¬ 
tion of the species—hence, a variety. 
