Guess why holly is the featured plant this week? Many will immediately think of Christmas, but holly was used pre-Christianity for decorating the Roman winter-solstice festival of Saturnalia.
The botanical name for Holly, Ilex aquifolium, is reflected in its botanical family (Aquifoliaceae) and order (Aquifoliales),but there is no aquatic lin. In Italy holly is called “agrifoglio”, derived from the Latin ACRI-folia meaning “sharp leaves”.
Native to Europe, holly has been cultivated for ornamentation, hedgerows and, despite the prickles, even ascattle fodder! Holly is adapted to survive frosts with a thick waxy leafcuticle and “antifreeze” cell contents. Holly buds are reported to withstand minus29.8°C without freezing (Neuner et al, 2019).
Some Ilex species are used in ethnic medicine, Ilex dipyrena is used in Indian for treating pain, swelling, and burns; it contains recognised antioxidants and analgaesics (Ali et al, 2021). Ilex paraguariensi is brewed into “Yerba Mate” a popular South American beverage. European holly extraxt contains many of the same phytochemicalsas Yerba (Pachura et al., 2021), but without caffeine; it reduces hyperlipidemia in rats, so may have medicinal potential for reducing blood cholesterol and triglycerides.
And for those interested in dermatology, holly extract is also proposed for reducing skin hyperpigmentation disorders (Mabrouk K et al, 2019).
Happy Winter Solstice, and enjoy the holly however you choose!
Further reading
🌿 Ali A et al.(2021). Phytochemical and Biological Screening of Leaf, Bark and Fruit Extracts from Ilex dipyrena Wall. Life (Basel), 11(8), 837. https://doi.org/10.3390/life11080837
🌿 Mabrouk K et al (2019) Utilisation d'un extrait d'Ilex aquifolium pour le traitement desdesordres de la pigmentation et pour le blanchiment de la peau. World patent application,https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2019174786A1
🌿 Neuner G et al(2019). Frost Survival Mechanism of Vegetative Buds in Temperate Trees: Deep Supercooling and Extraorgan Freezing vs. Ice Tolerance. Front Plant Sci., 10,537. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2019.00537
🌿 Pachura N et al(2021). Biological potential and chemical profile of European varieties of Ilex. Foods 11(1), 47. https://doi.org/10.3390/foods11010047
🌿 Vega C, Valbuena-Carabaña M, Gil L, Fernández V (2021). Water sorption and desorption of isolated cuticles from three woody species with focus on Ilex aquifolium. Front Plant Sci. 12, 728627. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.728627
