PIawdbook op Trees of the ISToetheen States and Canada. 321 



The Mountain Holly, as its name implies, is 

 quite different from the other Hollies in being 

 distinctly a mountain-loving tree. In the high 

 Alleghanies of North and South Carolina and 

 Tennessee it attains its largest size, here some- 

 times growing to the height of 30 or 40 it. 

 with slender branches forming a narrow pyra- 

 midal top and trunk sometimes 10 or 12 in. in 

 uiameter. The bark of trunk is of a brownish 

 gray color slightly roughened with lenticels. 

 Excepting in these high altitudes it is usually 

 shrubby. Quite as distinct as it is from other 

 Hollies in habitat is it also in its large leaves, 

 which are more suggestive of those of a 

 Plum than of a Holly, and in its somewhat 

 larger fruit. It is a handsome tree and would 

 doubtless be popular for ornamental planting 

 were it not for the fact that its beauty is 

 evanescent, as it drops l)oth its leaves and its 

 fruit early. 



The wood is heavy, hard and strong, fine- 

 grained and nearly white but not of commercial 

 importance.! 



Leaves deciduous, ovate to oblong-lanceolate. o-."i 

 in. long, obtuse or acute at base, acuminate or 

 acute at apex, sharply serrate with slender pointed 

 teeth. membranaceous. prominently arcuate- 

 veined, glabrous dark green above, paler and some- 

 what glabrous on the prominent veins beneath : 

 petioles slender, about % in. long. Flowers in 

 ,Iune, in few-flowered cymes at the ends of short 

 spurs on the growth of the previous season, or 

 solitary on the new growth ; calyx lobes acute, 

 ciliate." Fruit subglobose, scarlet, sometimes 

 nearly % in. in diameter; nutlet prominently 

 ribbed. 



1. A. W., XI, 252. 



