164 AQUIFOLIACEAE 



on vigorous branchlets, are firm, rather widely to narrowly 

 lanceolate, and 1^ to 4 inches long by about ^ to li/^ inches 

 wide. The apex is bluntly acute and the blade usually is tapered 

 from below the middle to the petiole, the margin being crenu- 

 late or crenulate-serrate. The blade is smooth above and more 

 or less pubescent beneath, especially on the main veins, and the 

 short petiole is grooved and pubescent above. 



The flowers are of two sorts. Those having stamens are 

 borne on pedicels about l^ to j4 ir^ch long, generally in clusters 

 of 3 to 12. Those having pistils stand on shorter pedicels and 

 are solitary or in pairs. The calyx lobes are triangular, blunt, 

 and not glandular-ciliate. The fruit, which matures in Sep- 

 tember and October, is globose, nearly one-third inch in diam- 

 eter, red, and contains 3 to 4 nutlets, w^hich are moon shaped, 

 bony, and ribbed longitudinally. 



Distribution. — The Possumhaw prefers the borders of 

 sloughs and bogs and usually grows in swamps and low 

 woods. In such habitats it is scattered from Virginia west 

 to Illinois and southern Missouri and south to Florida and 

 Texas. In Illinois, its distribution follows chiefly the valleys 

 of the Wabash, Ohio and Mississippi rivers, beginning, on the 

 eastern side of the state, at Edwards and Wabash counties 

 and extending south around the lower part of the state and 

 north again to the southern tip of Calhoun County. It is, 

 however, reported at an altitude of 900 feet in the Ozarks 

 in Union County, and there is an isolated report of its occur- 

 rence in La Salle County along the Illinois River. 



ILEX VERTiCILLATA (Linnaeus) Gray 



Common Winterberry 



The Common Winterberry, fig. 39, is an erect shrub 5 to 15 

 feet high, with smooth bark roughened by warty lenticels and 

 with gray to reddish-brown branches. The branchlets are 

 smooth, and the oval-lanceolate to broadly obovate leaves are 

 114 to 4 inches long by ^ to 2 inches wide. They are mostly 

 acuminate at the tip and narrowed to sometimes rounded at 

 the base, and the margins are serrate or sometimes doubly 

 serrate. The leaf surface is glabrous or nearly so above and 

 more or less pubescent beneath, particularly on the main veins. 

 The texture of the leaves varies, some being thin, others thick 



