72 Addisonia 



to the eye, take their first tinge of color and soon thereafter gleam 

 among the green leaves like polished coral beads singly or clustered 

 in the short intervals along the branches between leaf and leaf. 

 The leaves themselves at no time show any bright tints of autumn 

 coloring. Nor do they persist late in the season but, falling away, 

 leave the fruit in beaded wands to glow in frozen swamp and gray 

 thicket well into the winter, the name " winterberry " needing no 

 interpreter. Of less obvious application, the name "black alder" 

 is said to have reference to the dark color of the older bark. 



This is a shrub of friendly habit with other low-ground woody 

 species of like stature and is not disposed to take so close a growth 

 as to preclude a mixed association with its companions. Among 

 them its flowers make no display and have only a brief season in 

 late June and early July. 



The distribution of this species is from Connecticut to Florida 

 and northward in the interior from Missouri to Wisconsin and 

 Ontario. Eastward and northward it gives place to another winter- 

 berry, Ilex hronxensis, not widely dissimilar in aspect but of distinct 

 attributes. A derivative of this, the Nantucket winterberry. 

 Ilex fastigiata, having smaller and narrower leaves and crowded 

 erect branches, is abundant on Nantucket, and is almost insular 

 in its habitat, occurring elsewhere, as far as known, only locally in 

 New Jersey. 



Our plate is from a shrub growing in the Fruticetum of the New 

 York Botanical Garden, transplanted from the North Meadow in 

 1898. The species is in cultivation, but deserves a wider use in 

 planted grounds. White-fruited and yellow-fruited forms have 

 been reported. 



E. P. BlCKNKLL. 



Explanation op Plate. Fig. 1. — Fruiting branch. Fig. 2. — Flowering 

 branch. Fig. 3. — Flower, X 5. 



