ILICINE^. 



SILVA OF NORTH AMEIUCA. 



107 



ILEX OPACA. 



Holly. 



Parts of the flower in 4's; calyx-lobes acute; leaves spinose-dentate 



Ilex opaca, Aiton, Hort. Kew. i. 169. — "Willdenow, Spec. i. 

 708 ; Enum. 172 ; Berl. Baumz. 189. — Nouveau Duha- 

 Tiiel, i. 8. — Michaux, Fl. Bor.-Am. ii. 228. — Persoon, 

 Syn. i. 151. — Poiret, Lam. Diet. Suppl. iii. 65. — Mi- 

 chauXj f. S^ist. Arb. Am. ii. 191, t. 11. — Pursh, Fl. Am. 

 Sept. i. 117. — ■ Rafinesque, Fl. Ludovic. Ill ; Med. Bot. 

 ii. 1, t. 53. — Eoemer & Schultes, Syst. iii. 487. — Link, 

 Emim. 147. — Hayne, Dendr. Fl. 10. — Torrey, Fl. XJ. S. 

 194 ; Fl. N. Y. ii. 2. — Elliott, Sk. ii. 679. — De Can- 

 dolle, Frodr. ii. 14. — Sprengel, Syst. i. 495= — Watson, 

 Dendr. Brit. i. 3, t. 3. — Loudon, Arh. Brit. n. 516, t. — 

 Hooker, Fl. Bor.-Am. i. 121. — Bigelow, Fl. Boston. 41. — 

 Don, Gen. Syst. ii. 17. — Spach, Hist. Veg. ii. 427. — 

 Dietrich, Syn. i. 554. — Griffith, Med. Bot. 432. — Em- 

 erson, Trees Mass. ed. 2, ii. 385, t. — Darlington, Fl. 

 Cestr. ed. 3, 175. — Chapman, Fl. 269. — Curtis, Bep. 



Geolorj. Surv. N. Car. 1860, iii. 58. — Maximowicz, Mem. 



Acad. St. Petershourg, ser. 7, xxix. 29. — Sargent, Forest 



Trees N. Am. 10th Census U. S. ix. 34. — Trelease, Trans. 



St. Louis Acad. v. 345. — Watson & Coulter, Gray's Man. 



ed. 6, 108. 

 I. Aquifolium, Linn^us, Spec. 125 (in part). — Marshall, 



Arhust. Am. 63. —Walter, Fl. Car. 241. 

 I. laxiflora, Lamarck, Diet. iii. 147 ; III. i. 355. — Pursh, 



Fl. Am. Sept. i. 117. — Roemer & Schultes, Syst. iii. 494 ; 



Mant. iii. 334. — De Candolle, Frodr. ii. 14. — Sprengel, 



Syst. i. 495. — Don, Gen. Syst. ii. 17. — Spach, Hist. Veg. 



ii. 427. — Dietrich, Syn. i. 555. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. ii. 



517. 

 "I. querclfolia, Meerburgh, Icon. t. 5." 

 Ageria opaca, Rafinesque, Sylva Telhir. 47. 



A tree, forty to fifty feet in height, with a trunk two or three, or exceptionally four feet in diam- 

 eter, with short slender branches forming a narrow pyramidal head, and thick fleshy roots. The baik 

 of the trunk is half an inch thick, with a light gray surface roughened hy wart-like excrescences. The 

 stout branchlets are covered, when they first appear, with fine rufous pubescence which disappears by 

 the end of the season, when they are glabrous and pale brown. The winter-huds are short, obtuse or 

 acuminate, with narrow acuminate scales ciliate on the margins. The leaves are elliptical or obovate- 

 oblong, pungently acute, with thickened wavy margins and a few stout spinose teeth, or sometimes quite 

 entire, especially on the upper branches ; ^ they are two to four inches long, with a prominent midrib 

 and conspicuous veins, and are borne on short stout petioles thickened at the base, grooved above, and, 

 like the midrib, slightly puberulent. They are thick, coriaceous, dull yellow-green, paler and often 

 quite yellow on the lower surface, and remain on the branches for three years, falling when the growth 

 begins in the spring. The stipules are minute, broadly acute or nearly deltoid and persistent. The 

 sterile and fertile flowers are produced on different plants in short pedunculate cymes from the axils of 

 the young leaves, or are scattered along the base of the young shoots. The inflorescence is three to 

 nine-flowered on the sterile plant, and one or rarely two or three-flowered on the fertile. The slender 

 peduncles and pedicels are puberulous with minute acute bracts near their base. The flowers open in 

 spring ; they are characterized by acute calyx-lohes with ciliate margins, and by the broad sessile stigma. 

 The fruit, which ripens late in the autumn, remains on the branches until the early spring of the follow- 

 ing year ; it is spherical or ovoid, a quarter of an inch across, dufl red or rarely yellow. The nutlets are 

 prominently few-ribbed on the hack and sides, nearly triangular, and rather narrower towards the apex 



than at the base. 



The most northern station of Ilex 0]}aca is near the coast of Massachusetts Bay in the city of 

 Quincy. It is rare on the coast of New England and New York where it never grows to a large size, 

 becomes larger and more common south of the Hudson River, and extends south, generally near the 

 coast, to the shores of Mosquito Inlet and Charlotte Harbor, Florida. It is exceedingly rare in the 



1 McUichamp, Bull. Torrey Boi. Cluh, viii. 112. 



