The evergreen bastion: How the holly's defense mechanism became a symbol of christmas protection

“ You can imagine now how the place looks in every season; when the holly berries shine red and warm and glossy in the hedgerow; when their branches, clad with polished green leaves, are torn down to welcome Christmas in hall, and church, and cottage; when the birds begin to build; when children part the boughs of the privet and the hawthorn in order to look for the thrush and the linnet’s nest; when the hyacinths come with the sweet mid-spring; when the dog-roses, perishable as beautiful, open to the sun; when the May bursts into flower, and the honeysuckle perfumes the air ”

“ The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove, from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. ”

“ Lure me like sprites, and from the leaves a voice:
"Say not our lesson is decay; we fall,
And lo, the naked trees in beauty lift
Their delicate tracery against the sky.
On the pale verdure of the grass we spread
A shining web of scarlet, bronze, and gold;
When the rain comes, the oaks uphold us still.
The holly shines, and waits the Christmas chimes,
Beneath the branches of the evergreens." ”

“ No Christmas is Christmas truly without at least a few branches of the evergreen holly of the South, whose leathery, spiny-pointed leaves [137] are brightened by clusters of red berries. Every year, hundreds of crates and boxes of these holly branches are shipped north from the woods of Alabama, and other Southern states. Many people make their living by cutting loads of these branches, and hauling them to the shipping sheds where they are packed and put onto the railroad. The business has grown so rapidly within the past twenty-five years that holly trees are becoming very scarce. ”

“ The American holly also yields its branches for Christmas greens. In the remotest village in the North one may now buy at any grocery store a sprig of red-berried holly to usher in the holiday season. The tree is a small one at best, slow-growing, pyramidal, twenty to forty feet in height, with short, horizontal branches and tough, close-grained white wood. It is rare to find so close an imitation of ivory, in color and texture, as holly wood supplies. It is the delight of the wood engraver, who uses it for his blocks. ”

“ Sheep and deer are very fond of eating the tough, leathery leaves of the Holly, and it is believed that the tree clothes its lower branches in prickly leaves to protect itself from these greedy enemies.
Country people tell you that if branches of smooth Holly are the first to be brought into the house at Christmas-time, then the wife will be head of the house all the next year, but if the prickly boughs enter first, then the husband will be ruler. ”

“ The bark of the young Holly shoots and boughs is pale green and quite smooth.
The tree requires little sunshine, and it seems to keep all it gets, as every leaf is highly polished and reflects the light like a mirror. These leaves grow closely on every branch; they are placed [98] alternately on each side of the twigs, and are oval, with the edges so much waved that the leaves will not lie flat, but curl on each side of the centre rib.
The prickly leaves (3) which grow low down on the tree have sharp spines along the waved edges, and a very sharp spine always grows at the point of the leaf. ”

“ In some places the young shoots are gathered by the peasants, dried, bruised, and used as a winter cattle-food. No doubt, in the early history of the Holly, cattle found out its good qualities for themselves, and browsed upon the then-unarmed foliage. In self-defence the tree developed spines upon its leaves, and so kept its enemies at a respectful distance. Above the reach of these marauders the production of spines would be a useless waste of material. ”

“ The Rowan-tree of all others is gifted with the powers of magic, and is held to be a charm against the Evil Eye, witchcraft, and unholy spells. The Elder, the Thorn, the Hazel, and the Holly, in a similar manner, possess certain properties which entitle them to be classed as magical plants. Garlic is employed by the Greeks, Turks, Chinese, and Japanese, as a safeguard against the dire influences of the Evil Eye. ”

“ De Gubernatis tells us, that in certain parts of France, in Switzerland, at Bologna, and in other Continental countries, there is an old custom extant of cutting branches of Holly on Christmas Eve, and hanging them in houses and stables, in the hope of driving away evil spirits and witchcraft. As the Holly-leaf is prickly, it repulses and drives away enemies. ”

“ Nor is this so difficult a bit of evolution as it looks at first sight. Almost all plants are more or less covered with hairs, and it needs but a slight thickening at the base, a slight woody deposit at the point, to turn them forthwith into the stout prickles of the rose or the bramble. Most leaves are more or less pointed at the end or at the summits of the lobes; and it needs but a slight intensification of this pointed tendency to produce forthwith the sharp defensive foliage of gorse, thistles, and holly. Often one can see all the intermediate stages still surviving under one's very eyes. ”

“ The Thorns stand some singly, some in close companionship, impenetrable masses of short-twigged prickly growth, with here and there a wild Rose shooting straight up through the crowded branches. One thinks how lovely it will be in early June, when the pink Rose-wreaths are tossing out of the foamy sea of white Thorn blossom. The Hollies are towering masses of health and vigour. Some of the groups of Thorn and Holly are intermingled; all show beautiful arrangements of form and colour, such as are never seen in planted places. ”

“ Above all the natural Greens which inrich our home-born store, there is non certainly to be compared to the Holly, insomuch as I have often wonder'd at our curiosity after foreign Plants and expensive difficulties, to the neglect of the culture of this vulgar but incomparable tree.... Is there under Heaven a more glorious and refreshing object of the kind than an impregnable Hedge of near three hundred foot in length, nine foot high, and five in diameter ”

“ While we laugh and carouse 'neath its glittering boughs,
To the Christmas holly we'll sing.
The gale may whistle, the frost may come
To fetter the gurgling rill;
The woods may be bare, and warblers dumb,
But holly is beautiful still.
In the revel and light of princely halls
The bright holly branch is found;
And its shadow falls on the lowliest walls,
While the brimming horn goes round.
The ivy lives long, but its home must be
Where graves and ruins are spread;
There's beauty about the cypress tree,
But it flourishes near the dead ”

“ The whole tree lacks the brightness of the European species. Hedges of this lustrous-leaved holly shut in many an English garden, and their bright berries glow cheerfully through the grey, sunless, winter days. No wonder the gardeners frown upon the little thrushes that feed upon these berries, thus robbing the garden of one of its chief winter charms. ”

“ Holly varies in size from small straggling bushes to well-formed trees fifty or sixty feet high and two or three in diameter. The principal value of holly is not in its wood, but in its leaves and berries. Some persons suppose that holly leaves never fall. That is true of no tree that attains any considerable age. An examination of a holly thicket, or a single tree, in the spring of the year will reveal a fair sprinkling of dead leaves on the ground, though none may be missed from the branches. Those that fall are three years old, and they come down in the spring. ”

“ I can eat ivy-berries in March, and yew in its season, poison or not; and hips and haws and holly-berries and harsh acorn, and the rowan, which some think acrid; but the elderberry I can't stomach.
How comes it, I have asked more than once, that this poor tree is so often seen on the downs where it is so badly fitted to be and makes so sorry an appearance with its weak branches broken and its soft leaves torn by the winds? How badly it contrasts with the other trees and bushes that flourish on the downs—furze, juniper, holly, blackthorn, and hawthorn! ”

“ In the time of Gerard and Parkinson there seems to have been only the one typical species, and perhaps the Hedgehog Holly.
I may finish the notice of the Holly by quoting two most remarkable uses of the tree mentioned by Parkinson: "With the flowers of Holly, saith Pliny from Pythagoras, water is made ice; and againe, a staffe of the tree throwne at any beast, although it fall short by his defect that threw it, will flye to him, as he lyeth still, by the speciall property of the tree." ”

“ Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance--
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
⁠Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
⁠The serpent that would clasp her with his length,
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o'er the disentangled doom.
To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
⁠To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
⁠Neither to change, nor flatter, nor repent; ”