AMERICAN HOLLY
Ilex opaca, Ait.
Form.—Height 15-30 feet, diameter 1-2 feet; trunk short; branches slender, spreading and ascending, forming a conic crown.
Leaves.—Alternate, simple, evergreen, leathery, glabrous, oval, margins wavy with scattered spiny teeth, dark green above, pale green beneath.
Flowers.—May to June; dioecious, or polygamo-dioecious, the staminate 2-9 on a common stalk, the pistillate usually solitary; small, white.
Fruit.—Matures in late summer and persists through the following fall and winter; a bright red berry-like drupe about the size of a pea, smooth, shining, containing a 4-ribbed, brown nutlet.
Bark.—Smooth, or slightly rough with age, grayish or grayish-brown.
Wood.—Hard, tough, close-grained, chalky-white in color.