Trees or shrubs, with small axillary 4–8-merous flowers, a minute calyx free from the 4–8-celled ovary and the 4–8-seeded berry-like drupe, the stamens as many as the divisions of the almost or quite 4–8-petalled corolla and alternate with them, attached to their very base.—Corolla imbricated in the bud. Anthers opening lengthwise. Stigmas 4–8, or united into one, nearly sessile. Seeds suspended and solitary in each cell, anatropous, with a minute embryo in fleshy albumen. Leaves simple, mostly alternate. Flowers white or greenish.—A small family, nearly related to the Gamopetalous order Ebenaceæ.
1. Ilex. Petals or corolla-lobes oval or obovate. Pedicels mostly clustered.
2. Nemopanthes. Petals linear. Pedicels solitary.
1. ÌLEX, L. Holly.
Flowers more or less diœciously polygamous. Calyx 4–6-toothed. Petals 4–6, separate, or united only at the base, oval or obovate, obtuse, spreading. Stamens 4–6. The berry-like drupe containing 4–6 little nutlets.—Leaves alternate. Fertile flowers inclined to be solitary, and the sterile or partly sterile flowers to be clustered in the axils. (The ancient Latin name of the Holly-Oak, rather than of the Holly.)
§ 1. AQUIFÒLIUM. Parts of the flower commonly in fours, sometimes in fives or sixes; drupe red, its nutlets ribbed, veiny, or 1-grooved on the back; leaves (mostly smooth) coriaceous and evergreen.
[*] Leaves armed with spiny teeth; trees.
1. I. opàca, Ait. (American Holly.) Leaves oval, flat, the wavy margins with scattered spiny teeth; flowers in loose clusters along the base of the young branches and in the axils; calyx-teeth acute.—Moist woodlands, Maine to Va., near the coast, and more common southward. June.—Tree 20–40° high; the deep green foliage less glossy than in the European Holly (I. Aquifolium, L.), the berries not so bright red, and nutlets not so veiny.
[*][*] Leaves serrate or entire, not spiny; shrubs.
2. I. Cassìne, L. (Cassena. Yaupon.) Leaves lance-ovate or elliptical, crenate (1–1½´ long); flower-clusters nearly sessile, smooth; calyx-teeth obtuse.—Virginia and southward along the coast. May.—Leaves used for tea by the people along the coast, as they were to make the celebrated black drink of the North Carolina Indians.