In Lowland Scots the word "hollen" preserves the original English form, which in Ancren Riwle (about 1230) is written "holin," being direct from the Anglo-Saxon "holen, holegn." Chaucer writes it "holm," a form which occurs in such place-names as Holmwood and Holmesdale in Surrey. It is also preserved in the name holm-oak, _i.e._ the ilex or evergreen oak, whereof the young leaves bear holly-like spines. It is an interesting feature in both these trees, as well as in the holly-leaved _Osmanthus_, that the leaves produced above the level of browsing animals are spineless, such defence being needless for the upper branches. This characteristic has been called in question by persons founding their observation upon cultivated varieties of the holly, some of which bear none but spineless leaves, others none but spined ones. It will, however, be found to be the normal habit in wild hollies.
It is a hazardous thing for a Saisneach to dabble in Celtic etymology, yet will I venture to mention that the Gaelic for holly is _cuileann_, and may be recognised in such place-names as Cullen in Banffshire and Lanarkshire and (aspirated) Barhullion in Wigtownshire. Far seen Slieve Gullion, a cone of the Mountains of Mourne, in Armagh (1,893 feet), is popularly connected with the name of Cuileann, a worker in metals in the reign of Conchobar Mac-Nessa, King of Ulster; but it is written Sliebhe Cuilinn in the Irish Annals, which indicates Holly Mountain as the true meaning. From the same source we are able to interpret Cullen, Cullion, and Cullenach, the names of many Irish townlands, as derived from vanished hollies; and Cuileanntrach Castle, in Meath, destroyed by one Rory in 1155, was so called because of the hollies on the shore.
The enormous natural order of _Leguminosæ_ or pea-flowered plants contains many of the loveliest flowering plants in the world, but among them there are but three which, attaining the stature of trees, contribute importantly to the beauty of British woodlands--namely, the common laburnum, the alpine laburnum, and the false acacia or locust tree.
[Illustration: PAGODA TREE (_Sophora japonica_)
Every country child knows the laburnum, but it is not every planter who recognises that there are two distinct species, bearing a general resemblance to each other, but differing in the time of flowering and in other important respects. The species most usually planted is the common laburnum (_L. vulgare_), and of a truth it would be difficult to name any tree more delectable with its "dropping wells of fire." It is uncertain how early it was brought from Central Europe to Great Britain; Tradescant had it growing in 1596; but if "awburne," mentioned in an Irish Act of Edward IV. (cap. iv., 1464) among the four woods prescribed for the bow with which every Englishman in Ireland was to provide himself, means "laburnum," it follows that this tree must have been in cultivation from very early times. Indeed, the botanist Matthiolus mentions it as being better even than the yew for bow-making; and we may recognise the word "awburne" in the old Lowland Scots name for the laburnum, "hoburn saugh," both being from the alternative Latin form, _alburnus_. Gerard called it the bean-trefoil.