Dicotyledons with Polypetalous Flowers . 
2 5 
Nahtral Order 
ILICINE2E. Tab. 20. 
Diagnosis.— Evergreen shrubs or trees, with glabrous eglandular, often 
coriaceous, alternate leaves. Flowers small, regular. Petals 4-5, free or 
connate below. Stamens 4-5, hypogynous or epipetalous. Pistil syncarp- 
ous, with axile placentation. 
Distribution. —A small Natural Order, widely dispersed in temperate and tropical countries; 
most numerous in South America, and represented by but a single species in Tropical Africa and in 
Australia respectively. Common Holly (Ilex Aqtiifolium), the only British member of the Order, 
extends across Western and Southern Europe to the Black Sea. 
One British Genus; Species, i. 
Flowers subdicecious in Common Holly. 
Fruit a drupe, with 4 bony 1-seeded pyrenes. 
USES, &c.—The white close-grained wood of Common Holly is in request for Marquetry ware, and from the 
bark bird-lime is prepared. The leaves of a South American Holly (Ilex joarccguayensis) are dried as Mate or 
Paraguay tea. Common Holly, in various varieties, is in every shrubbery, and a few allied species from Madeira, 
the Mediterranean, the Himalaya and Japan, are in cultivation. 
4 
