holly berries

After seeing these berries on a lovely wintery snowy walk in December I got to wondering why it is that some holly bushes seem to be covered in berries and other seem to have few or none. On a bit of a research it seems that in the main trees or bushes are either male or female (except for one variety which is a self fertile female variety). Amusingly it seems that if you want a definate male or female holly sapling you need to go for the variagated varieties of which “Golden King” is a female plant and “Silver Queen” is a male plant! Now whoever thought of those names really does need shooting!