618 



TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



A tree, 20-30 high, with a slender trunk 6'-10' in diameter, stout spreading 

 branches, and slender glabrous pale silver gray branchlets; more often a tall strag- 

 gling shrub. Wiiiter-buds minute, obtuse, with ovate light gray scales. Bark of 

 the trunk rarely more than ^^' thick, light brown, and roughened by wart-like excres- 

 cences. "Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, creamy white, with rather lighter colored 

 sap wood. 



Distribution. Borders of streams and swamps in low moist soil; southern Vir- 

 ginia to western Florida in the region between the eastern base of the Appalachian 



f>^JOJ 



Mountains and the neighborhood of the coast, and through the Gulf states to the 

 valley of the Colorado River, Texas, and through Arkansas and Missouri to southern 

 Illinois; usually shrubby east of the Mississippi River and only arborescent in 

 Missouri, southern Arkansas, and eastern Texas. In Florida a form (var. Curtissii, 

 Fern.) occurs with leaves only J'-|' long and fruit about ^' in diameter. 



5. Ilex monticola, Gray. 



Leaves deciduous, ovate to lanceolate-oblong, acute at the apex, cuneate or 

 rounded at the base, sharply and rather remotely serrate, with minute glandular 

 teeth, membranaceous, glabrous, or sparingly hairy along the prominent midribs 

 and veins, 4:'-5' long, ^'-2' wide, light green above and pale below; their petioles 

 slender, |'-^' long. Flowers appearing in June when the leaves are more than 

 half grown, on slender pedicels ^' long on the staminate plant and much longer on 

 the pistillate plant, in 1-2-flowered cymes crowded at the ends of lateral spur-like 

 branchlets of the previous year, or solitary on branchlets of the year; calyx-lobes 

 acute, ciliate; ovary contracted below the broad flat stigma. Fruit globose, bright 

 scarlet, nearly 1' in diameter; nutlets narrowed at the ends, prominently ribbed 

 on the back and sides. 



A tree, 30-40 high, with a short trunk sometimes 10^-12' in diameter, slender 

 branches forming a narrow pyramidal head, and more or less zigzag glabrous branch- 

 lets pale red-brown at first, becoming dark gray at the end of their first season; more 

 often a low shrub, with spreading stems. Winter-buds broadly ovate to sutglobose, 

 about ^' long, with ovate keeled apiculate light brown scales. Bark of the trunk 

 usually less than ^V thick, with a light brown surface roughened by numerous lenti- 

 cels. Wood hard, heavy, close-grained, and creamy white. 



