The Holly (Ilex acquifolium)

On the gloomiest of winter days the bright red berries of this, our commonest native evergreen, shine through; as  Robert Southey’s delightful poem, “The Holly Tree” says:

“But when the bare and wintry woods we see,

What then so cheerful as the Holly-tree? “

Holly and its berries is, of course, associated with Christmas in Britain, its name is perhaps derived from holy, the berries representing Christ’s blood and the spiny leaves the crown of thorns, it is traditionally brought inside to “deck the halls”. As with so many Christian traditions the roots are pagan, Druids, Celts and Romans brought holly inside in the winter believing that their evergreen leaves were magic and would ensure the return of spring.

Holly is dioecious, it has separate male and female trees and only the females, after pollination from the male flowers, will bear berries. In good conditions it will grow into a beautiful conical tree up to 65 feet tall in 100 years. Marks Hall Arboretum has some lovely mature holly trees. Holly tolerates shade; indeed it is very happy growing as the understorey in oak woodland, it is tough and resilient and will grow almost anywhere that a bird chooses to deposit the seed; there are stunted bushes amongst the pebbles at Dungeness.

Holly is supreme among hedge species, John Evelyn in 1664 wrote of his holly hedge “ Is there under heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the kind, than an impregnable hedge of about 400 feet in length, 9 feet high and 5 in diameter…..it mocks the rudest assaults of the weather, beasts, or hedge breakers”. 

Holly wood is world-class high density wood, little used now, but once highly valued for joinery and white veneers, when dyed black it has been a substitute for ebony to make chess pieces.

The Holly Blue butterfly lays her first brood of eggs in spring on the flower buds of holly, her second, summer brood are laid on ivy flowers.

Interestingly the higher the leaves on the holly tree the fewer the prickles, lower leaves’ more vulnerable to browsers, have stronger defences!

Robert Southey made full use of this in his poem, perhaps a fine thought on which to end:

“Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,

Like the high leaves upon the Holly-tree.”

Happy Christmas everyone.