Addisonia 51 



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(Plate 106) 



ILEX SERRATA ARGUTIDENS 



Japanese Sharp-toothed Winterberry 



Native of Japan 



Family Aquifoliaceak Holi<y Family 



Ilex argutidens Miq. Versl. Med. Akad. Wetensch. II. 2: 84. 1868. 

 Ilex serrata argutidens Rehder, Bailey, Cyclop. Am. Hort. 798. 1900. 



A slender shurb up to twelve or fifteen feet tall, the young branch- 

 lets purplish and minutely pubescent. The glabrous leaves are 

 alternate, on short petioles a quarter inch long or less. The blades 

 are elhptic, up to two inches long and an inch wide, acute at the 

 base, and acute or acuminate at the apex; the lower surface is paler 

 than the upper; the margins are rather irregularly serrate. The 

 flowers, of a pale rose color, have the sepals, petals and stamens 

 usually in fours, and are borne commonly singly in the axils of the 

 leaves. The sepals are very short, the petals broadly oval and 

 spreading. The stamens are shorter than the petals. The fruit, 

 about three sixteenths of an inch in diameter, is a bright red. 



This Japanese holly is closely related to the common winter- 

 berry of our swamps, resembling it much in habit; the fruit is of a 

 similar color, but smaller, making up for this by the profusion in 

 which it is borne. The specimen from which the illustration was 

 prepared has been in the fruticetum collection of the New York 

 Botanical Garden since 1895. 



The genus Ilex contains nearly three hundred species, mainly 

 distributed in America and Asia, with a few in Austraha, Oceanica, 

 Europe, and Africa. In the eastern United States there are about 

 fifteen species; six of these are evergreen, the American holly, 

 Ilex opaca, extending as far north as Massachusetts, and the ink- 

 berry, Ilex glabra, to Nova Scotia, while the remainder of the ever- 

 green species do not range north of Virginia. Some of our most 

 decorative fruiting shrubs are found in this genus, and one. Ilex 

 crtnata, of Japan, is one of the best broad-leaved evergreens. 



George V. Nash. 



Explanation op Plats. Fig. 1. — Fruiting branch. Fig, 2. — Flowers. 

 Fig. 3.— Flower, X 5. 



