Holly Facts 
Reports are occasionally received of trees which bear 
both staminate and pistillate flowers. Usually the blos- 
soms have not been examined to determine whether 
anthers containing pollen and an ovule are present. In- 
stead, only the fact that a lone tree has borne fruit is 
given as proof. This is not unusual. One such instance 
is well known—that of a large American holly growing 
on a mountain top with no other holly within 1500 feet 
of it. There are however, many hollies beyond the 1500 
foot radius. At blossoming time bees are plentiful in the 
lone tree and from there travel to other hollies one half 
mile away before going to their hives. It happens that 
this holly though all by itself, is in a “bee line” between 
male trees and the hive. So the profusion of berries each 
year is not due to hermaphroditism but to the natural 
pollinating agent, the bee. Interestingly, holly honey is a 
rare delicacy. 
In other cases, berries will form without pollination 
of the ovule. This is known as parthenocarpy. The berry 
appears normal, but the seeds are sterile. This phenom- 
enon occurs more frequently on English and Chinese 
species than on American. 
* * * 
Hollies may be grown from seed, from cuttings, or by 
grafting or budding. When grown from seed, the trees 
may or may not look like the one from which the seed 
came, and they may be male or female. There is no way 
of telling in advance. Most holly seed does not start to 
grow until 2 years after it has been produced; some not 
until the third year. Moreover, seedling hollies grow 
slowly at first and must be grown for at least five and 
sometimes ten years before you know whether they are 
worth keeping. For these reasons, those who want to 
grow fine hollies do not plant seed. 
Instead, they grow them from cuttings or slips, which 
are 4 to 5 inch pieces of the current year’s growth taken 
from the trees they think worth reproducing. These are 
inserted in sand or some other rooting medium, usually 
in a greenhouse or cold frame. After a number of weeks, 
roots appear at the base. The rooted cuttings are then 
lifted carefully and put into pots to be grown for a year, 
at the end of which time, they should be from 6 to 10 
inches tall and ready to line out in the garden or nursery. 
Grafting is a technique, practiced for many gener- 
ations, of producing a union between a section of twig 
taken from a choice tree and the roots of another holly, 
usually of seedling origin. The skill necessary to produce 
a high percentage of successful grafts comes readily with 
practice. However, the process is slower than that of root- 
ing cuttings. Moreover, the grafts after being made must 
be kept in closed grafting boxes (usually in a green 
house), and given bottom heat. The resulting trees are 
as fine as those from cuttings, but because of the skill and 
equipment needed, it is less practiced than formerly. 
Budding, a variation of grafting, in which only one 
bud is inserted into the bark of another tree and made 
to grow, is seldom used in propagating hollies. 
* * * 
The plant known as English holly, Hex aquifolium, 
is native to the British Isles, western and southern 
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