Progress in all the Arts is promoted in times of peace, and the history of gardening is an obvious manifestation of this fact. During the reign of Queen Victoria, when Brittania ruled the seven seas and the swords of war were sheathed, the gardens of England flowered as never before.
Of special significance was the attention showered upon hollies by England's noted nurserymen during the Victorian era. In no other country in the world was the same loving care bestowed upon these beautiful and time revered trees. Competitive displays were held with England's foremost horticulturists receiving prized awards for introductions of hollies of exceptional distinction and beauty. Vying with one another, these English nurserymen searched far and wide to extend their collections to include many other species of Ilex from foreign lands.
Thus in the years of 1874-76 the English Gardeners' Chronicle illustrated and described 153 named garden varieties of English holly in a monumental monograph by Thomas Moore. This effort at holly nomenclature was followed in a noteworthy manner by the publication, in 1908, of Holly, Yew and Box, compiled and written by Dr. William Dallimore while serving as curator of Kew Gardens in London.
English Holly Transported
Interestingly enough, an exportation of hollies from old England to the newly colonized country of the Pacific Northwest was made during the years from 1850-75. These transplanted hollies found such salubrious climate and ideal soil for their growth that today, 150 years later, many of Oregon's inhabitants consider them as trees native to their state. During these past decades, many new varietal forms have made their appearance in the Northwest, until we have assembled in Oregon and Washington a most creditable series of English holly varieties.
English holly (Ilex aquifolium) may be described briefly as a tree-like shrub of dense, compact and symmetrical growth, with spiny, wavy leaves of glossiest green. The female or pistillate hollies produce clusters of bright red berries prized highly for their decorative value. The all important male or staminate holly is admired for its luxuriant foliage.
Before attempting any classification of the many garden varieties of English holly, the origin of the various varieties must be mentioned. One of nature's amazing phenomena is the curious capacity of vegetative growth to spontaneously mutate or change itself from its apparently fixed habit to an entirely new form. Such miracles or mutations are usually referred to as sports, and they may make their appearance in seedling form or as unusual branches called bud sports.
Illustrations of holly seed sports are those producing yellow or orange berries in place of the usual red, the weeping or pendulous hollies, those with leaves of purest gold and the many spineless or smooth-leaved varieties. Bud sports occur when a terminal bud swells to bursting in the spring season and, Willy nilly, as if from nowhere, there emerges a pixilated branchlet garbed with color or form which is distinctly different.
Thus through nature's creative handiwork and some back yard ideas our gardens have been endowed with a dazzling display of gorgeous hollies arrayed in brightest silver and gold. When Mother Nature turns herself loose with abandon, her miracles to perform, we are permitted to perceive the ultimate in bizarre and unusual coloration, as well as the grotesque in form. Truly the hollies have been nature's willing subjects, ever yielding to her whimsy and caprice.
Most of the colorful mutants appear as bud sports and may be classified generally as follows: first as those where the margins of the leaves are edged or banded with silver or gold and known as the "Marginates". The second group known as the "mediopietas" are varieties where the individual leaves are centrally (medio) illuminated or painted (pieta) with either silver or golden coloration. The first group of these hollies, the marginates, are the more fixed or constant and seldom do they revert to the form of their parent. The mediopictas, where the coloration is confined to the leaf centers, are more fickle and frequently send forth branches corresponding to those of the holly of their origin.
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