Description :

• Trees or shrubs, monoecious, sometimes dioecious, evergreen
• Leaves alternate, petioled, simple, entire or toothed, glabrous; stipules minute, semipersistent
• Flowers unisexual, regular, small, in 1-few-flowered, pubescent, axillary cymes
• Calyx 5- or 6- lobed, imbricate, ciliate
• Corolla 5- or 6-lobed, imbricate, ciliate, white
• Stamens 5 or 6, alternating with but basally adhering to petals; anthers 2-thecous with longitudinal dehiscence
• Ovary superior, 5- or 6-locular, with 1 or 2 pendulous ovules in each locule; stigma sessile, capitate or discoid, prominent
• Fruit a small globose drupe, ripening pink to crimson, containing 5 or 6 pyrenes
• Seeds : embryo small, endosperm copious
• x = 10 (9 or 12, 17, 19) (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Ilex L.
  • Linnaeus:125 (1753)
  • Sonder: 473 (1860)
  • Andrews: 163 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 400, mostly Asia and America
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Ilex mitis (L.) Radlk. var. mitis , widespread in subtropical and temperate forests