DAHOON (Ilex cassine, Linn.). Shrub to 35 feet. Ever- 

 green shrub or tree with persistent, silky, white down on the 

 last three years of growth. Branches at length smooth, 

 brown. Bark gray, roughened by numerous slits, the lenticels. 

 Wood light, soft, close-grained, pale brown, with white sap- 

 wood. Leaves 2 to 3 inches long, \ to 1 inch wide, plain- 

 margined, or with faint teeth near the acute apex, narrowing 

 gradually to base, lustrous above, sparingly downy on 

 broad midrib beneath, and on stout, short petiole. Flowers 

 in axillary cymes, minute, with pointed, hairy calyx lobes. 

 Fruit in late autumn, persistent till spring, red, rarely yellow, 

 berries, solitary or in clusters of 3, about \ inch in diameter. 

 Dist. : Cold swamp borders and coast pine barrens, or sandy 

 ridges, Virginia to Tampa Bay, west to Louisiana, not far 

 from the Gulf. A white-stemmed, narrow-leaved variety, 

 reduced in size throughout, is the distinct variety, myrti- 

 folia, Sarg., of the pine barrens and cypress swamps, North 

 Carolina to Louisiana. 



Illustration from "Hough's Handbook of Trees" 

 200 



