N. ORD.—AQUIFOLTACEAS. 406 
GENUS.—ILEX,* LINN. | 
SEX. SYST.—HEXANDRIA MONOGYNIA. 
PRINOS. 
BLACK ALDER. 
SYN.—ILEX VERTICILLATA, GRAY; PRINOS VERTICILLATUS, LINN.; P. 
GRONOVII, MICHX.; P. CONFERTUS, MCN. 
COM. NAMES.—BLACK ALDER, FEVER BUSH, WINTERBERRY, VIRGINIAN 
WINTERBERRY; (FR.) APALACHINE A FEUILLES DE PRUNIER; (GER.) 
VIRGINISCHE WINTERBEERE. 
A TINCTURE OF THE BARK AND FRUIT OF ILEX VERTICILLATA, GRAY. 
Description. — This upright or ascending, much-branched shrub, usually 
attains a growth of from 4 to 8 feet. Leaves thin and deciduous, not spiny, in 
form obovate, oval, or cuneate-lanceolate, acute at the apex and base, uncinately 
serrate, and downy upon the veins underneath; petioles about one-quarter the 
length of the blade. /nflorescence dicecious; flowers all short peduncled, white, 
appearing with the leaves. Sterile flowers in small axillary umbels; calyx-lobes 
ciliate; fefals mostly 4 to 6; stamens 6 to 7; ovary abortive. Fertile flowers 
aggregated or solitary; pefa/s mostly 5 to 8; ovary conical, about 6-celled ; stzgma 
4- to 6-lobed. /vuzt a globose, bright vermilion berry, about the size of a large 
pea, crowded upon the branches so as to appear whorled ; xzéets about 6, smooth 
and even, or dorsally furrowed or ridged. Zméryo minute, nearly globose. 
Aquifoliaceze.—This small order, to which Prinos is but lightly wedded, and 
represented in North America by but 2 genera and 14 species, is characterized as 
follows: Shrubs or trees with their eaves simple, mostly alternate, and generally 
coriaceous and evergreen. flowers small, axillary, 4- to 8-merous, white or green- 
ish, often polygamous by abortion. Calyx minite, free from the ovary, 4- to 
-toothed. Stamens as many as the divisions of the corolla and alternate with- 
them, the filaments attached to their very base; anthers adnate, opening length- 
wise. Corolla hypogynous, rotate, or almost or quite 4- to 8-parted, imbricated in 
the bud. Ovary 4- to 8-celled ; ovules anatropous ; sézgmas 4 to 8 or united into 1, 
nearly sessile. /vuit a baccate 4- to 8-seeded drupe; seeds solitary in each cell, 
suspended ; eméryo minute ; albumen fleshy. 
Our only other proven species in this order is the South American Maté, or 
Paraguay Tea (//ex Paraguayensis, St. Hil.), the leaves of which are used like 
Chinese tea, and are considered slightly nervine, diaphoretic, and diuretic. In 
* The ancient name of the holly oak. 
