The headline of a November 26, 1919 Whittier News article warned “Wild Holly May Become Extinct.” The “wild holly” referenced was the California native Toyon, sometimes called “California Holly” or “Christmas Berry.”
Toyon‘s evergreen leaves and bright red winter berries resemble American or English holly long used in holiday decorations. In the early part of the 1900’s, it was popular to gather Toyon branches to make wreaths and other decorations. In fact, it was too popular. Desire for the holly-like decorations and a fast growing population who could move about by cars caused concern this colorful California native could be wiped out.
Enter the California Wildflower Conservation League. As reported in the Whittier News article, the League’s founder and president, Bertha M. Rice, sounded the alarm and pressed for the solution.
According to Rice, “the chief offenders are automobilists who throng the public highways on Sundays and holidays mutilating these trees beyond repair.” She said, “extermination of these Christmas berries can be prevented only by extremely careful handling in the future.” Public awareness and voluntary restraint was not going to be enough. Rice’s organization sought a state law protecting the Toyon.
Rice wasn’t the only one concerned.
The November 29, 1920 Pasadena Post reported on another effort to save the Toyon. The California Association of Out of Door Clubs announced its campaign to save the “Christmas Berry.” The Association warned that “if the west is not careful it will see a day in the near future when the holiday season will be absent the merry red berry.”
The California legislature responded. On March 31, 1921, the Pasadena Post reported the state legislature passed a new law to “save the California holly.”
In local mountains Toyon were still being decimated. The December 2, 1927 Eagle Rock Sentinel reported on a bulletin issued by Angeles Forest Superintendent G. H. Cecil. The article is reprinted below. In it, Superintendent Cecil stated that “thousands” of Toyon bushes had been destroyed in the past few years at the “ruthless hands of commercial pickers” and that commercial picking of Toyon was prohibited. According to Cecil the commercial devastation “so greatly reduced the (Toyon) bushes that it is now necessary to protect them from destruction.”
By 1932, the threat to the Toyon appears to have waned. On December 8, 1932, the Pasadena Post ran an article reminding readers it was illegal to pick Toyon berries on public lands. The Los Angeles County Forestry Department warned that its officers “will do all in their power to protect the hills hereabout from marauders on the beautiful Toyon or Christmas berry” and the “penalty for illegal picking of these berries will be six months in the county jail or $500 fine.”
Forestry officers assigned to the Arroyo Seco division commended the public for restraint shown in recent years which has preserved the local Toyon. “The public has cooperated splendidly in the last few years in preserving the mountain holly in this vicinity and if this protection is continued this beautiful growth will add to the fame of the valley, pictorially speaking and will be of great value to the water shed.”
Postscript
This post did not go as expected. I started out to learn more about the Toyon in connection with some volunteer work at Eaton Canyon Nature Center. I did not expect to find such a pointed conservation story.
Whether or not the Toyon was actually threatened with “extinction” as the early conservationists claimed, native Toyon was surely being destroyed on a wide scale. The state legislature was moved to pass a law protecting Toyon. And, local forestry officials reported that “thousands” of Toyon bushes had been destroyed in the local mountains. Officials issued bulletins warning against illegal Toyon harvesting.
I am grateful the early conservationists sounded the alarm when they saw the Toyon disappearing from public lands and “mutilated” along roadways as Bertha Rice described. And I appreciate their public spiritedness in that they recognized natural beauty and took action to preserve that beauty for the public and future generations.
So, by about 1932, it appears that matters were under control, at least as far as the Toyon was concerned. Writing in the Topanga New Times, Suzanne Guldimann, recently reviewed the Toyon craze in southern California. She theorized that threats to the Toyon subsided with the passage of legal protections, financial constraints brought on by the Great Depression, and the growing popularity of artificial decorations.
Leave a Reply