PEOPLE who take their festive holly from the wild risk upsetting the natural
balance between male and female holly trees.
Rub茅n Retuerto from the department of ecology at the University of
Santiago in Spain points out that holly is a 鈥渄ioecious鈥� species鈥攊ts trees
are either male or female. He reports in Functional Ecology (vol 14, p
529) that young female trees can鈥檛 cope as well as males with stresses such as
drought or lack of shade. But people who take holly from the wild, as is
traditional in some parts of Europe, target female trees because of their bright
red berries.
This could threaten the survival of any females which are already under
stress, he says. 鈥淎ny changes in sex ratios could potentially affect rates of
pollen spread, seed production and population replacement.鈥�
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