SWAMP HOLLY OR MEADOW HOLLY (Ilex decidua, Walt.) 

 Shrub to 30 ft. Straggling shrub, or slender tree, with stout 

 spreading branches and silvery white twigs, smooth, slim, 

 often pearly gray. Bark of trunk warty with small excres- 

 cences, thin, light brown. Wood creamy white, hard, close- 

 grained, heavy. Leaves deciduous, clustered on the ends of 

 side spurs, except on vigorous shoots, serrate, oblong-spatulate 

 or narrow, tapering abruptly to the acute, sometimes notched, 

 apex, and narrowly to the short, grooved petiole, thick, firm, 

 2 to 3 inches long, pale green above, paler beneath. Flowers 

 minute in few-flowered clusters at base of leafy spurs. Fruit 

 solitary or few in clusters, axillary; berries flattened, or glob- 

 ose, orange, or orange-scarlet, with few, ridged nutlets. Dist.: 

 Wet soil, Virginia to Florida; Missouri to Texas. Shrubby 

 east of Mississippi River. 



