20 
FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
described. Ilex dalioon with oblong, 
pointed, smooth foliage, and which also 
bears an abundance of yellowish red 
berries. Ilex verticillata, with smooth but 
darker colored bark, foliage somewhat 
serrate, and, as its name indicates, of slen¬ 
der, upright growth. Ilex cassine, found 
in abundance in this section, around the 
edges of shallow ponds or bay heads; rang¬ 
ing in height from three to twenty feet, 
and, during the winter, covered with ber¬ 
ries of a color varying from scarlet to red¬ 
dish-yellow. This is the very small-leav¬ 
ed species sometimes called ‘‘Yaupon” 
and ‘Tlex vormitoria.” Its leaves are 
supposed to have a medicinal quality as in¬ 
dicated by the latter not particularly at¬ 
tractive name—or at least attractive, in 
its significance, only to one who might be 
possessed of a feeling that his stomach 
was overloaded. Equally in evidence, 
handsome shrubs when growing in 
clumps in congenial situations, are Ilex 
lucida and Ilex glabra. Some of you may 
think that nothing possessing the com¬ 
mon name of gall-berry should be men¬ 
tioned among desirable plants; and yet 
varieties which carry this distasteful name 
and that come under the above named 
species are, with their lustrous dark, ever¬ 
green foliage and shining black persistent 
berries, more attractive as a part of Na¬ 
ture’s handiwork than some of the less 
thirfty exotics—even if possessed of 
more euphonious names—with which the 
average horticultural gardener might be 
inclined to supplant them. 
In further reference to names, I would 
say that it is not the purpose of this ad¬ 
dress to pick a bone with the champion ol 
either botanical or common names; nor 
to air any slight amount of knowledge the 
writer may possess. Common names may 
be however, in some cases, very inade¬ 
quate. For instance, Small gives “Win- 
terberry” as the vernacular for three dif¬ 
ferent species of Ilex; the smallest of 
which. Ilex glabra, reaches a maximum 
height of about five feet and the largest. 
Ilex verticillata, a maximum height of 
about twenty feet. We therefore see that 
in gathering “Winterberries” we may 
either go to the woods empty handed, or 
carry along a twenty-foot ladder, accord¬ 
ing to our own interpretation of the name. 
On the other hand, gall-berry is not men¬ 
tioned, as a common name, in any botani¬ 
cal description I can find although it is a 
name commonly enough applied to 
several species of Ilex, including Ilex 
glabra and Ilex lucida. If we could 
forever disassociate the name of gall-ber¬ 
ry from the handsomer varieties of some 
of these species of Ilex it would be equally 
desirable with that of striking the com¬ 
mon, deprecatory name of stinking cedar 
from the beautiful Torreya taxifdlia of 
the Apalachicola River, or the inappropri¬ 
ate and entirely unauthoritative name of 
Judas tree from the handsome Cercis 
canadensis, or Red Bud. 
In speaking of shrubs, we must not. 
overlook the cornus or dogwood which, 
in its several varieties, is one of the first 
harbingers of spring. Its numerously 
clustered small flowers—which present 
the appearance of one large one—put in 
their appearance in advance of the foli¬ 
age ; as do also those of the handsome 
pink azalea or wild honeysuckle, the bo¬ 
tanical name of which is Rhododendron 
nudiflorum. Dogwood and pink azaleas 
are very much in evidence in this par¬ 
ticular thicket and it might be said that 
the pink azaleas were establishing sub¬ 
thickets of their own. 
But if the handsome pink azaleas are 
colonizing, our beautiful native yellow 
