Sign up to get The Wild sent weekly to your inbox. Merry almost Christmas. Southern California has its very own Christmas berry called toyon, or California holly ( Heteromeles arbutifolia, for people who know their plants). You’re sure to see it along hillsides and trails at this time of year: clusters of bright red berries dangling from a tall shrub with long oval green leaves. They’re not for eating, just admiring. Supposedly, stands of toyon on local hills were mistaken for holly and attached to the name of L.A.'s most famous neighborhood. “This idea of floral origins for Hollywood is romantic,” Lila Higgins of L.A.'s Natural History Museum writes in “How Hollywood Didn’t Get Its Name.” “It’s also not true. Hollywood got its name for a much more mundane reason: Someone wealthy liked the sound of it.”