Pliny has a great deal to say about this tree. He tells us that in the Vatican of Rome there was in his day an ilex older than the city, bearing a brazen plate inscribed with Etruscan characters, showing that it had been sacred of old. He also states that at Tivoli there were three holm oaks flourishing which were growing when Tivoli (Tibur) was founded centuries before Rome. Now, considering that Rome was founded about B.C. 750, and Pliny died about A.D. 115, it appears that the traditional age attributed to certain trees in his day was as liberal as it remains in ours. It would not be rash, however, to venerate the splendid ilexes in the grounds of the Villa Pamfili and the Villa Borghese at Rome as lineal descendants of the trees that Pliny loved.
In suitable districts near the sea the ilex is invaluable as shelter. Once established, it stands the roughest buffeting of storms without disfigurement. I am writing these notes within a hundred yards of an ilex at Ardgowan, on the Clyde. It is about 50 feet high, and stands isolated on a bare lawn, exposed to all the fury of tempests that come roaring up the firth, twisting its boughs in the most violent manner. Yet these are so tough as never to be broken, and the tree remains a model of symmetry and grace.
At Holkham, in Norfolk, there is a large grove of ilex, called the Obelisk Wood, the like of which for extent is not to be seen, I think, elsewhere. At Tregothnan, in Cornwall, also an immense number of ilexes have been planted in a long avenue beside the sea. It is remarkable--unique, probably--but it is not an arrangement to be recommended for displaying the peculiar beauty of the trees, which consists in their massive foliage. The branches meet overhead, and as you drive along under them the effect is gloomy.
Very near of kin to the ilex is the cork oak (_Q. suber_), which grows all through the Spanish Peninsula and the Mediterranean region, except in those parts where limestone or chalk forms the soil. Of all the oak family, this comparatively humble member is of most importance to civilised life, for no efficient substitute has been devised for cork in some of the uses to which it is put. The annual consumption must be enormous; it is wonderful how the supply is maintained. Having no qualities to recommend it to the landscape gardener, the cork oak is only fit for growth in this country as a curiosity, and there only in the eastern and southern English counties. In the midland and northern districts it may exist, but cannot rightly thrive.