iLiciNE^. SILVA OF NOllTH AMERICA. 



115 



ILEX MONTIGOLA. 



Pakts of the flo^ver usually in 4's or o's ; calyx-lobes acute, ciliate. Leaves ovate 

 or lanceolate-oblong. 



Hex monticola, Gray, Man. ed. 2, 264. — Koeh, Dendr. ii. and Forest, ii. 352. — Watson & Coulter, Grai/s Man. ed. 



228. — Maximowicz, Mem. Acad. Sd. St. Petershourg, 6, 108. 



ser. 7, xxix. 30. — Chapman, Fl. ed. 2, Suppl. 633. — Tre- I. ambiguus, Torrey, Fl. JSf. T. ii. 2 (excl. syn.). 



lease, Trans. St. Louis Acad. v. 347. — Sargent, Garden I. montana, Gray, Man. 276 (not Frinos montana, Sw.). 



A tree, thirty to forty feet in height, with a short trunk sometimes ten to twelve inches in diam- 



r 



eter, slender branches forming a narrow pyramidal head, and fibrous roots ; or more often, a low shrub 

 with spreading stems. The bark of the trunk is usually less than one sixteenth of an inch thick, with 

 a light brown surface covered with lenticels. The branchlets are more or less zigzag, glabrous, and cov- 

 ered when they first appear with pale red-brown bark, which becomes dark gray by the end of the first 

 season. The winter-buds are obtuse, with ovate keeled aplculate light brown scales. The leaves are 

 ovate or lanceolate-oblong, wedge-shaped or rounded at the base, and acute at the apex ; they are decid- 

 uous, membranaceous, long-petioled, sharply and rather remotely serrate with minutely glandular teeth, 

 glabrous or sparingly hairy along the veins on both surfaces. They are four- or five inches long and a 

 half to two inches broad, or at the north often much smaUer, light green above, pale on the lower 

 surface, with a prominent midrib and primary veins. The flowers appear in June when the leaves are 

 more than half grown, and are produced m one to two-flowered cymes aggregated at the ends of the 

 lateral spur-like branches of the preceding year, or solitary on the shoots of the season. The pedicels 

 of the sterile flowers are half an inch long, and much longer than those of the fertile flowers. These 

 are characterized by acute calyx-lobes with cihate margins and by an ovary contracted below the broad 

 flat stigma. The fruit is globular, nearly half an inch in diameter, bright scarlet, and crowned with the 

 remnants of the large stigma. The nutlets are deeply ribbed on the back and sides. 



The most northern stations where Ilex monticola is known to grow naturally are the CatskiU 

 Mountains and Cattaraugus County, New York; it extends through the mountains of Pennsylvania, 

 its eastern station in that state being in Northampton County, and southward along the mountains to 

 northern Alabama. It is only on the lower slopes of the Alleghany Mountains in North and South 

 Carolina that Hex monticola attains the habit and size of a tree, reaching its greatest development on 

 the banks of streams flowing from the Blue Eidge, where it is often found growmg m peaty sod in 

 thickets of the Great Rhododendron, and accompanied by the Mountain Magnolia, the Yellow Poplar, 

 the Black Birch, the YeUow Birch, the Red Maple, and the Mountain Ash. 



The wood of nex monticola Is hard, heavy, and close-grained. It is creamy white and contams 

 numerous thin meduUary rays. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.6.03, a cubic toot 



weighing 40.90 pounds.^ , -, ^ 2 j. 4? fi 



nex raonticola was apparently overlooked by. the early botanists who explored the forests of th 

 Alleghany Mountains ;' and it was not distinguished until about 1840, when Mr. John Carey discovered 

 it on the CatskiU Mountains. 



A i- FiiP'laud and en"-a"-ed in commercial pursuits. On hia 



1 This tree apparently grows very slowly. The specimen in the returnea to t, ^ ^^^ Carey Settled first at Touawauda, New 



Jesnp collection of North American woods in the American Mu- ^^"^J^^ |" * ;„ Vermont, and finally in the city of New York. He 

 seum of Natural History, New York, is five inches in diameter, and lorK, tnt ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^^^ ^^^^.^^ ^^^_ 



shows one hundred and seven layers of annual growth, of which had acquire a as c , ^ ^^^^ to devote himself 



land and on his arrival m America utj,."! 

 seventy-nme are sapwood. ' ^^. ^f tl^e flora of the northern states, form- 



2 John Carey (1798-1880) ; a native of London, who removed assicluousij c ^^..^j^ ^j^^ j^^^ 

 in 1830 to the United States where be resided until 18.2, when he ing intimate relations with Drs. Torrey 



