see it clearly

Holly Tree

In northern regions evergreens are not numerous, and the short days of winter are better fitted for festivities round the warm hearth within doors than for industrial occupations in the chill open air. Thus, during the comparatively gloomy reign of winter, the old agricultural festival of the melancholy god Saturn was kept by the Romans with houses decked with boughs, and with free license of speech and jest even for the slave; whilst the ancient Teutonics seem to have propitiated those "good people," "the lubber fiend" and other woodland sprites, by offering them warm sheltering boughs around the ingle-nook, when their wonted haunts were bare of leaves. Among the Kelts the unbroken life of "Madre Natura" was symbolized by the evergreen branches of the weird mistletoe, that parasitically decked the boughs of the sacred monarch oak of the forest, and of the surrounding apple-groves of Arthur's Avalon when their leaves had fallen. Ancient canons of the Church forbade Christians to deck their houses with evergreens according to these Pagan customs, at least, not at the same times as the heathen; but it was the wise policy of men like Gregory and Augustine to Christianize these rites, although the mistletoe seems to have been too closely associated with the arcana of Druidism ever to receive the same full ecclesiastical sanction as the Holly and the Yew. The spinous leaves and blood-red berries of the former might well be taken by the Christian symbolist as a mystic foreshadowing of the Passion at the celebration of the Nativity, and the name of the tree, which originally referred mainly to its pointed leaves, may have suggested something holy.

Our poets naturally abound in allusions to the bright green of the leaves and the crimson of the berries of the Holly, associating it generally with ivy and yew; but in the following curious carol, dating from the year 1456, and preserved among the Harleian manuscripts, the Holly is accorded the pre-eminence:

"Nay, Ivy! nay, it shall not be I wys;
Let Holy hafe the maystry, as the maner ys.
Holy stond in the halle, fayre to behold;
Ivy stond without the dore; she ys full sore a cold.

Holy and hys mery men they dawnsyn and they syng,
Ivy and hur maydenys they wepyn and they wryng.
Ivy hath a kybe (Kybe, chilblain.); she laghtit with the cold,
So mot they all hafe that wyth Ivy hold.

Holy hath berys as red as any rose,
The foster and the hunters kepe hem from the does.
Ivy hath berys as black as any slo;
Ther com the oule and ete hem as she go.

Holy hath byrdys, a ful fayre flok,
The Nyghtyngale, the Poppyngy, the gayntyl Lavyrok.
Good Ivy! what byrdys ast thou?
Non but the Howlet, that cryes 'How! how!'"

Many popular superstitions still linger round the use of Holly at Christmas. In Rutland it is deemed unlucky to bring it into a house before Christmas Eve; in Derbyshire it is said that, according as the Holly brought into the house at this season be prickly or smooth, the husband or the wife will be master during the year. In some western counties the boughs removed from churches are treasured, like the palms at Passion-tide, for luck throughout the year following; and in Germany, like the tapers used at Candlemas, they are looked upon as a sure protection against thunder.

The name Holly is probably derived from the root hul, or kul, connected with the Latin culmen, a peak, and culmus, having reference to the same character as its modern specific name aquifolium, or "needle-leaved." Though known as Stechpalme in modern German, it was formerly in that language termed Hulis, Hulst, or Hulse. William Turner, in the "Libellus de re herbaria" (1538), his earliest botanical work, speaking of it under the head of Ruscus, says, "Procerum aut galli housum, angli an holy tre et an Huluar tre nominant, hec etiam arbor, si Ruellio credimus, ilex aquifolia dicitur e cujus corticibus ipse admodum puer viscum confeci." "But the French call the tall kind housum; the English, an holy tre and an Hulvar tre. This tree also, if we believe Ruellius, is called ilex aquifolia, from the bark of which I have formerly, when a boy, made birdlime." The old French houlx still retains its Teutonic form in the modern houx, and the name hulver is in use in the eastern counties, not to mention the name knee-hul for the Butcher's Broom (Ruscus aculeatus); whilst many a modern schoolboy has followed Turner's example in the manufacture of birdlime by chewing hollybark. Under the form holm, the name of the Holly enters into many of our early English place-names, such as Holmwood, and no one has ever doubted the indigenous character of the species, which is still represented by ancient trees in the oldest portions of our English forests.

The Holly will grow in any soil in which water is not absolutely stagnant; but it prefers a rather dry sandy loam, and, whilst it not only "outdares cold winter's ire," but seems to flourish in the bleakest situations, it does not do well under the shade of other trees. It is generally from ten to forty feet in height, and not more than two or three in girth. The slow-growing, even, and hard-grained wood is, except at the center, as white as ivory, and is valued for turning and inlaying. It stains well, and is therefore used in place of ebony for the black handles of tea-pots, while for engraving it is perhaps second only to boxwood.

One of the great charms of the Holly is its silvery bark. Smooth on the old stems as in the beech, but without the glossy sheen of the beautiful birch, it yet affords a most pleasing contrast to the dark foliage. The young twigs are light green, and slightly downy.

It is the foliage, however, contrasting alike with the bright greens of surrounding trees in summer, and with their leafless branches in winter, that gives the chief picturesque value to this "incomparable tree," as Evelyn terms this handsomest of evergreens. The glossy green leaves are associated in Shakespeare's lyric with the pleasures of forest life:-

"Heigh-ho! the green holly!
This life is most jolly."

Southey's well-known poem has popularized the fact that the leaves on the lower boughs are more spinous than those on the upper, suggesting a reason in accordance with that newer teleology which has been evoked by the teaching of Mr. Darwin. The spines of the lower branches do indeed protect them from cattle, though not from deer; whilst a sort of innate tendency to spinousness must account for the one terminal point of the upper leaves. Another poetical reason has been given for its general exemption from attack--namely, that, "unknown before, the Holly sprang up in perfection and beauty beneath the footsteps of Christ when He first trod the earth, and that, though man has forgotten its attributes, the beasts all reverence it, and are never known to injure it." Nevertheless, the Holly has other enemies besides the deer, for a species of aphis (Aphis ilicis) lives on the young shoots, and a fly (Phytomyza ilicis) burrows, when in the larval stage, under the epidermis of the leaves.

From May to August the tree bears clusters of small, wax-like, white flowers, which seem peculiarly attractive to bees; and, as the species is almost diaecious--that is, has on one tree flowers in nearly all of which the ovary is aborted, and on another those in which the four stamens bear hardly any pollen, it is by these insects that its fertilisation is mainly effected. This is also, of course, the reason why certain trees, being male, never produce berries; though an opinion has been expressed that male Hollies become female with age, a point deserving further attention. Many of the variegated forms grown in gardens produce little or no fruit, though one of these (var. laurifolia) bears a profusion of fragrant flowers. This absence of fruit argues a certain want of vigor, which is borne out by the fact that variegation is apparently produced by a deficiency of potash in the soil. Whether, as has been suggested, this ornamental partial chlorosis be due to some parasitic alga within the cells of the leaf or not, and whether, as has also been suggested, it be contagious or not, are points yet to be decided.

The berry is generally red, but sometimes yellow, white, or, without the aid of Jack Frost, black; and, though eaten with impunity by birds, may be said to be poisonous to man, being extremely emetic and cathartic in their effects. Owing, however, to a bitter principle that they contain, known as ilicin, the leaves were formerly used medicinally in cases of fever and rheumatism. It is probably this, or an analogous principle, that gives its flavor to the yerba or mate tea of South America, which is prepared from the leaves of an allied species (Ilex paraguayensis).

Hollies can be readily raised from cuttings, which are preferably set in April or May; but, as Evelyn says, seedlings are better, especially natural and well-established ones from the woods. The berries for seed should be mixed with sandy loam for a twelvemonth, as they do not germinate till their second spring.

Few objects on a lawn are more beautiful than a Holly-bush or clump of Hollies, with red or yellow berries peeping from among the glossy leaves flecked with ivory-white, while a briar-rose clambers with pink and white sprays among its boughs, or the autumnal glories of Virginian creeper relieve the more somber green.