The cones are very small, ovate and pointed.
The slender filaments of the stamens vary widely, often in the same flower; the anthers are linear to ovate in shape, attached at the back to the filament, and open lengthwise.
The leaves are rather short, curved, and often twisted; the male catkins, in dense cylindrical whorls, fill the air of the forest with their sulphur-like pollen in May or June, and fecundate the purple female flowers, which, at first sessile and erect, then become recurved on a lengthening stalk; the ovate cones, about the length of the leaves, do not reach maturity until the autumn of the following year, and the seeds are seldom scattered until the third spring; the cone-scales terminate in a pyramidal FIG.
Ilex, usually a smaller tree, frequently of rather shrub-like appearance, with abundant glossy dark-green leaves, generally ovate in shape and more or less prickly at the margin, but sometimes with the edges entire; the under surface is hoary; the acorns are oblong on short stalks.
The leaves are broader than in most willows, and are generally either deltoid or ovate in shape, often cordate at the base, and frequently with slender petioles vertically flattened.
