Each Christmas, we produce a good crop of Holly berries. We go down to the local pre-Christmas Mistletoe and Holly Markets at Tenbury Wells because we have no Mistletoe here at the HoBB to accompany the berries.

The Holly trees are not coppiced and provide shelter and winter browse for the sheep.

But can anyone tell me what causes the lumps (see picture) on our Holly Tree trunks? If so, please contact me and I’ll log it here.

These ball shapes come in all sizes and don’t seem to be of any concern to the tree. If you break them off and cut them in half, they just look like a ball of Hollywood. ( Thought : Does anyone in India have the same balls on their Bolly Trees?)

We have fourteen holly trees (all are Ilex aquifolium ) and some of them are probably 300 years old. Most are naturally leggy and the frequent haunt of wood pigeons. Only a few of them grow these great nodule forms on their trunks ranging in size from a small pea to a large golf ball.

Waves from an inquisitive Hollywood ball onlooker
~~~~~~~~ <+))))))))>< ~~~ Grant