Outdoor Hour Challenge: Holly

This was not a planned challenge by Barb, but I thought I would still call it an outdoor hour challenge, since without Barb's plans I probably would not have struck out on my own. We are having cold weather here and given that it's so close to Christmas, I thought we would study the holly bush outside our window...

I began by reading what this site had to say about holly to give myself some background knowledge about the plant. We went outside and began with examining the bark, which was greyish and peeling a bit. We then decided it was too cold and plucked off a few leaves and berries to examine indoors. Here's a close-up...

One inside we examined the pointy part of the leaf, the waxy coating and the berries. We talked about why the leaves had the waxy coating and about how holly was an evergreen. After looking at the leaves, I'm not exactly sure what variety of holly this bush is. But our landlord said it was holly(he should know because he planted it) and it does have all the characteristics (except multiple points on the leaves). So that's what we are going with until someone tells me different!We also cut up a berry and noted that it smelled alittle like an apple. Here's our nature journal entries...

We had fun doing this study despite the cold weather. I wasn't sure how winter nature study would work, but there is so much out there to discover that I'm sure we will have plenty to see. Plus a brisk walk in the cold really wakes you up!