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:

• Sonder: 472 (1860)
• Mendes: 353 (1966)
• Andrews: 163 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Genera 2; species ± 400, cosmopolitan, but mostly in Asia and tropical America
• Southern Africa : Genera 1

References:

• ANDREWS, S. 1994. FSA contributions 1: Aquifoliaceae . Bothalia 24
• MENDES, E.J. 1966. Aquifoliaceae . Flora zambesiaca 2, 2
• SONDER, O.W. 1860. Aquifoliaceae . Flora capensis 1

Resources:

• Aquifoliaceae genus: Ilex