672 TREES OF NORTH AMERICA 



into thin minute scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, nearly white, turning yellow 

 with exposure, with thick lighter colored sapwood. 



Distribution. Southeastern Virginia to the St. John's River and Cedar Keys, Florida, 

 and westward to the shores of Matagorda Bay and the valleys of the upper Rio Blanco 

 and the Guadalupe River, Texas, and to southern Arkansas; in the Atlantic and east 

 Gulf states rarely far from salt water and usually not more than 10-15 high; of its largest 

 size and of tree-like habit only on the rich bottom-lands of eastern Texas. The branches 

 covered with the fruit are sold during the winter months for decorative purposes. An in- 

 fusion of the leaves, which are emetic and purgative, was used by the Indians, who for- 

 merly visited the coast in large numbers every spring to drink it. 



Occasionally used in the southern states for hedges. 



4. Ilex Krugiana Loesen. 



Leaves ovate, ovate-elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate and abruptly long-pointed or 

 acute at apex, rounded or obtusely cuneate at base, entire, with slightly thickened margins 

 subcoriaceous or coriaceous, glabrous, dark yellow-green and lustrous above, dull beneath, 



Fig. 606 



persistent, 2|'-4' long and l'-l|' wide, with a prominent midrib deeply impressed on the 

 upper side and pale on the lower side, and 6-9 pairs of slender primary veins connected 

 by thin reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, i'-f in length; stipules minute, whitish, per- 

 sistent. Flowers on slender pedicels, iV~i' long, in the axils of minute acute scarious 

 deciduous bractlets, in crowded clusters, the staminate 1-3-flowered on short peduncles, 

 the pistillate 1-flowered; calyx about T V in diameter, 4-lobed, the lobes triangular, suberect, 

 about as long as the tube, imbricated in the bud; corolla rotate, greenish white, petals 4, 

 ovate or slightly obovate in the pistillate flower, imbricated in the bud; stamens 4 in the 

 staminate flower, nearly as long as the petals; filaments slender, about as long as the oval 

 anthers; in the pistillate flower much smaller and abortive; ovary 4-celled, ellipsoid; stigma 

 small, discoid, obscurely 4-lobed; ovary of the staminate flower subconic, minute and abor- 

 tive. Fruit on a stout pedicel up to i' in length, globose, brownish purple, lustrous, ' in 

 diameter; sarcocarp thin; nutlets 4, irregularly 3-seeded, obtusely angled, dark brown. 



In Florida a tree, sometimes 30-40 high, with a tall often crooked trunk occasionally 

 4' in diameter and covered with thin smooth nearly white bark, becoming on old individ- 

 uals darker-colored and broken into narrow scales, and small ascending branchlets green 

 when they first appear, becoming light gray and finally white, and marked by numerous 

 round elliptic lenticels; often a shrub. 



