ILE 
This genus consists of small trees or shrubs, 
with alternate leaves, evergreen, toothed, 
or thorny ; and axillary, many-flowered pe- 
duncles. I. aquifolium, common holly, is 
usually from twenty to thirty feet in height, 
though it sometimes exceeds sixty feet ; the 
trunk is covered with a greyish bark, and 
those trees which are not lopped or browzed 
by cattle, are commonly furnished with 
branches, the greatest part of their length 
forming a sort of cone. Mr. Millar says, the 
difference of sexes in the flowers of the holly 
was first observed by his father. In his gar- 
den at Streatham in Surrey, he had many of 
these trees, which before he had possession 
of the place, were shorn into round heads ; 
he emancipated them from their slavery, 
pruned them, and trained up leading shoots ; 
seemingly glad to be released from their 
shackles, they quickly rewarded him with 
this discovery, concerning the nature of 
their flowers, which he communicated to 
the Royal Society. He perfectly recol- 
lects having carefully attended to the flow- 
ering of these trees during several seasons, 
and having uniformly observed hermaphro- 
dite flowers on some, and male flowers on 
others : in the former the anthers were dif- 
ferent from those in the male flowers, and 
appeared to be effete, and there never was 
a single male flower mixed with the herma- 
phrodite, or a hermaphrodite with the males, 
or any flower except the two here de- 
scribed. 
The holly makes an impenetrable fence, 
and bears cropping well, nor is its verdure, 
or the beauty of its scarlet berries, ever ob- 
served to suffer from the severest of our 
winters. Mr. Evelyn’s impregnable holly- 
hedge, four hundred feet in length, nine 
feet high,' and five in diameter, has been 
much celebrated by himself, Ray, and 
Others. 
The wood of this tree is the whitest of all 
hard woods, and used by the inlayer, espe- 
cially under thin plates of ivory. Tixe mill- 
wright, turner, and engraver, prefer it to 
any other : it also makes the best handles 
and stocks for tools, flails, the best riding 
rods and carter’s whips ; bowls, chivers, 
and pins for blocks ; Mr. Millar says, it is 
made into hones for setting razors; that 
the wood taking a fine polish, is proper for 
several kinds of furniture ; that he has seen 
the floor of a room laid in compartments 
with this ami mahogany, which had a very 
pretty effect. 
It is much used with box, yew, and 
white thorn, in the small trinkets and other 
ILL 
works, carried on, in, and about Tunbridge, 
commonly called Tunbridge ware. 
Sheep and deer are fed during the winter 
with the croppings. Birds eat the berries. 
The bark fermented, and afterwards washed 
from the woody fibres, makes the common 
birdlime. Forty or fifty varieties, depend- 
ing on the variegations of the leaves or 
thorns, and the colour of the berries, all de- 
rived from this one species, are raised by 
the nursery gardeners for sale, and were for- 
merly in great esteem, but since the old 
taste of filling gardens with shorn ever- 
greens has been laid aside, they are less re- 
garded ; a few however of the most lively 
varieties have a good effect in the winter 
season. 
ILIUM, in anatomy, the third and last of 
the small intestines. See Anatomy. 
ILLECEBRUM, in botany, a genus of 
the Pentandria Monogynia class and order. 
Natural order of Holoracea*. Amaranthi, 
Jussieu. Essential character: calyx five- 
leaved, cartilaginous ; corolla none ; stigma 
simple; capsule five-valved, one-seeded. 
There are twenty-one species, natives of 
North and South America and the West 
India Islands. 
ILLICIUM, in botany, a genus of the 
Polyandria Polygynia class and order. Na- 
tural order of Coadunatae. Magnolias, Jus- 
sieu. Essential character : calyx six-leav- 
ed ; petals twenty-seven ; capsule several, 
disposed in a circle ; bivalve one-seeded. 
There are two species, viz. I. anisatum, 
yellow-flowered aniseed tree; and I. florida- 
num, red-flowered aniseed tree. Both these 
plants bear a great resemblance to each 
other. Thurnberg doubts their being dis- 
tinct species. The whole of the first men- 
tioned plant, especially the fruit, has a plea- 
sant aromatic smell, and a sweetish sub- 
acrid taste. In China it is in frequent use 
for seasoning dishes, especially such as are 
sweet. In Japan they place bundles and 
garlands of the aniseed tree in their temples 
before their idols, and on the tombs of their 
friends. They also use the powdered bark 
as incense to their idols. Abranchput into 
the decoction of tetraodon hispidum is sup- 
posed to increase the virulence of the poi- 
son. The bark finely powdered is used by 
the public watchmen to make a chronome- 
ter or instrument for measuring the hours, 
by slowly sparkling at certain spaces in a 
box, in order to direct when the public 
bells are to sound. 
ILLUMINATING, a kind of miniature 
painting, anciently much practised for illus- 
