300 ILICACE.T.. [Ilex. 



Order XLVII. ILICACE^. 



" Calyx of 4 — 6 imbricated lobes. Corolla 4 — 6 lobed, imbri- 

 cated in ffistivation. Stamens 4 — 6, alternate with the segments 

 of the corolla. Ovary with from 2 — 6 or more cells. Ovules 

 solitary, pendulous from a cup-shaj)ed seed-stalk. Stigmas seve- 

 ral or lobed, nearly sessile. Fruit fleshy, with from 2 — or more 

 strong 1 -seeded nuts. Albumen fleshy. — Trees or shrubs. Leaves 

 coriaceous. Flowers small, axillary." — Br. Fl. 



I. Ilex, Linn. Holly. 



" Calyx 4 — 5 toothed. Corolla rotate, 4 — 5 cleft. Stigmas 4, 

 sessile. Berry spherical, including 4 nuts. (Some flowers desti- 

 tute of pistil)."— Sr. Fl. 



1. I. Aquifolium, L. Common Holly. Holm. Yeai. Christmas. 

 Leaves persistent ovate or ovate -elliptical acute shining lucid and 

 glabrous, of the lower branches waved rep ando- sinuate spinoso- 

 dentate, of the upper often entire or nearly so flat, peduncles 

 axillary short many-flowered, flowers subumbeUate, ends of the 

 branches elongate straight somewhat succulent. Br. Fl. p. 263. 

 E. B. t. 496. 



In woods, thickets, hedges, and on dry bushy or heathy banks and hill-sides ; 

 frequent. J^/. May, June.* i^c. October. Tj. 



A large shrub or small tree, sometimes of very considerable size, from 20 to 70 

 feet high, often of a pyramidal outline, at other limes of very irregular growth, the 

 hark on the trunk and main branches ash-gray, on the younger and flowering 

 somewhat angular ones green, and at their extremities clothed with an extremely 

 short pile or knap. Leaves persistent, about 2-^ or 3 inches long, on shortish 

 semiterete petioles, alternate or scattered, coriaceous, very rigid, ovate-lanceolate 

 or oblongo-elliptical, very acute, quite glabrous, dark glossy green above, pale and 

 scarcely shining beneath, obscurely veined, their thickened cartilaginous and some- 

 what deflexed margins for the most part abruptly waved, sinuate and pruduced 

 into irregular teeth, each tipped, as is the point of the leaf, with a very stiff pun- 

 gent spine, and which in some cultivated varieties are numerously scattered over 

 the whole upper surface : on the higher branches, at least in old trees, the leaves 

 are for the most part either partially or entirely flat and destitute of spines, at 

 olher times all the leaves are plane and unarmed, or some of the branches bear 

 prickly, the rest entire, leaves promiscuously. Stipules none. Flowers in axillary, 

 often crowded, compound or subumbeUate, almost sessile clusters,-]" sometimes 

 solitary or few together, greenish white tipped with brownish red at the back, f ihs 

 of an inch across, on short, round, slightly downy, erect pedicels, about the length 



* In January, 1848, during severely cold weather, which had already lasted 

 several days, a bolly-bush in a garden in Nelson street, Ryde, had numbers of its 

 fully developed flower-buds actually opened, and many more ready to expand, 

 thus anticipating the usual flowering time of the species fully four months, and 

 that under most unfavourable circumstances. 



f These fascicles consist of several 2- (or more usually 3-) forked peduncles 

 springing from a common centre, the middle flower-stalk being destitute of bracts. 



