Madam, – Holly has separate male and female trees. The berries are produced, obviously, only on the female tree. The trees with no berries are the male ones. Every year at this time the few remaining female holly trees are butchered in an attempt to decorate our homes. The result is an ever-dwindling number of female holly trees in the wild. With fewer female holly trees producing fewer berries there is a real risk that the population of Irish holly will become so overwhelmingly male in numbers that it will become sexually unviable and unable to produce new holly seedlings in our native woodlands.
Could people please give holly rest for a few years, to allow the female trees to recover, produce berries, and so allow a new generation of holly seedlings to develop? – Yours, etc,
JOHN F DOYLE,
Mill Road,
Midleton,
Co Cork.