AMERICAN HOLLY.
I. Opaca, Ait.
The American holly also yields its branches for Christ mas 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. Scroll work and turnery employ it. It is used for tool handles, walking-sticks, and whip-stocks. 'Veneer of holly is used in inlay work.
In southern woods and barren fallow fields where hollies grow, collectors, without discrimination, cut many trees each autumn, strip them of their branches, and leave the trunks to rot upon the ground. The increasing de mand for Christmas holly seriously threatens the present supply, for no methods are being practised for its renewal. It will not be long before the wood engraver will have to buy his blocks by the pound, as he does the eastern boxwood.
The range of this holly tree extends from southern Maine to Florida, throughout the Gulf states, and north into Indiana and Missouri.