A small much-branched tree, 20°—25° high, with a slender often inclining trunk rarely more than 6′ in diameter, and stout branchlets standing at right angles with the stem, slightly angled and puberulous during their first season, becoming glabrous or nearly glabrous, terete and pale gray in their second year; generally a tall shrub, with numerous stems forming dense thickets. Winter-buds minute, obtuse, with narrow dark brown or often nearly black scales. Bark of the trunk 1/16′—⅛′ thick, the light red-brown surface broken into thin minute scales. Wood heavy, hard, close-grained, nearly white, turning yellow with exposure, with thick lighter colored sapwood.
Distribution. Southeastern Virginia to the St. John’s River and Cedar Keys, Florida, and westward to the shores of Matagorda Bay and the valleys of the upper Rio Blanco and the Guadalupe River, Texas, and to southern Arkansas; in the Atlantic and east Gulf states rarely far from salt water and usually not more than 10°—15° high; of its largest size and of tree-like habit only on the rich bottom-lands of eastern Texas. The branches covered with the fruit are sold during the winter months for decorative purposes. An infusion of the leaves, which are emetic and purgative, was used by the Indians, who formerly visited the coast in large numbers every spring to drink it.
Occasionally used in the southern states for hedges.
4. [Ilex Krugiana] Loesen.
Leaves ovate, ovate-elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, acuminate and abruptly long-pointed or acute at apex, rounded or obtusely cuneate at base, entire, with slightly thickened margins subcoriaceous or coriaceous, glabrous, dark yellow-green and lustrous above, dull beneath, persistent, 2½′—4′ long and 1′—1½′ wide, with a prominent midrib deeply impressed on the upper side and pale on the lower side, and 6—9 pairs of slender primary veins connected by thin reticulate veinlets; petioles slender, ⅓′—¾′ in length; stipules minute, whitish, persistent. Flowers on slender pedicels, 1/12′—⅙′ long, in the axils of minute acute scarious deciduous bractlets, in crowded clusters, the staminate 1—3-flowered on short peduncles, the pistillate 1-flowered; calyx about 1/12′ in diameter, 4-lobed, the lobes triangular, suberect, about as long as the tube, imbricated in the bud; corolla rotate, greenish white, petals 4, ovate or slightly obovate in the pistillate flower, imbricated in the bud; stamens 4 in the staminate flower, nearly as long as the petals; filaments slender, about as long as the oval anthers; in the pistillate flower much smaller and abortive; ovary 4-celled, ellipsoid; stigma small, discoid, obscurely 4-lobed; ovary of the staminate flower subconic, minute and abortive. Fruit on a stout pedicel up to ⅕′ in length, globose, brownish purple, lustrous, ⅙′ in diameter; sarcocarp thin; nutlets 4, irregularly 3-seeded, obtusely angled, dark brown.
In Florida a tree, sometimes 30°—40° high, with a tall often crooked trunk occasionally 4′ in diameter and covered with thin smooth nearly white bark, becoming on old individuals darker-colored and broken into narrow scales, and small ascending branchlets green when they first appear, becoming light gray and finally white, and marked by numerous round elliptic lenticels; often a shrub.
Distribution. Florida, Homestead and Paradise Keys in the Everglades, Dade County; in the Bahama Islands, Hayti and San Domingo.
5. [Ilex decidua] Walt.
