Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Aquifoliales > Aquifoliaceae > Ilex > Ilex aquifolium

Ilex aquifolium (English holly)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Ilex aquifolium (holly, common holly, English holly, European holly, or occasionally Christmas holly), is a species of holly native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia. I. aquifolium is the species familiar in Christmas decoration, and is regarded as the type species of the genus Ilex, which by association is also called "holly". It is a evergreen tree or shrub found, for example, in shady areas of forests of oak and in beech hedges. It has a great capacity to adapt to different conditions and is a pioneer species that repopulates the margins of forests or clearcuts.
View Wikipedia Record: Ilex aquifolium

Attributes

Dispersal Mode [4]  Endozoochory
Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Dioecious
Hazards [1]  The fruit and probaby other parts of the plant contain saponins and are toxic, causing diarrhoea, vomiting and stupor; However, toxicity levels are low and it is only in very large doses that problems are likely to arise;
Leaf Type [1]  Evergreen
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Pollinators [1]  Bees
Scent [1]  The minute flowers are sweetly scented.
Specific Gravity [5]  0.65
Structure [1]  Shrub
Usage [1]  An excellent hedge plant, tolerating hard clipping and maritime exposure and forming a dense stock-proof shelter; Plants are fairly slow growing however; The cultivar 'Pendula' makes a very good carpeting ground cover plant when grown as a cutting on its own roots; It can be planted up to 1.2 metres apart each way, but is fairly slow to cover the ground; Wood - strong, hard and dense, it polishes well, though it must be well dried and seasoned or else it warps badly. It is beautifully white, except at the centre of very old trees, and is highly regarded by cabinet makers though it must be well seasoned; The heartwood of mature trees is used for printing blocks, engravings, turnery etc; The wood makes a good fuel, burning well even when green;
Height [1]  30 feet (9 m)
Width [1]  16.4 feet (5 m)
Light Preference [3]  Mixed Sun/Shade
Soil Acidity [3]  Moderate Acid
Soil Fertility [3]  Intermediate
Soil Moisture [3]  Moist
View Plants For A Future Record : Ilex aquifolium

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Coniothyrium ilicis[10]
Grifola frondosa (Hen of the Woods)[7]
Phyllactinia guttata[7]
Phytophthora ilicis (Holly Leaf Blight)[10]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2PLANTATT - Attributes of British and Irish Plants: Status, Size, Life History, Geography and Habitats, M. O. Hill, C. D. Preston & D. B. Roy, Biological Records Centre, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2004)
♦ 3ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 4Paula S, Arianoutsou M, Kazanis D, Tavsanoglu Ç, Lloret F, Buhk C, Ojeda F, Luna B, Moreno JM, Rodrigo A, Espelta JM, Palacio S, Fernández-Santos B, Fernandes PM, and Pausas JG. 2009. Fire-related traits for plant species of the Mediterranean Basin. Ecology 90: 1420.
Paula S. & Pausas J.G. 2013. BROT: a plant trait database for Mediterranean Basin species. Version 2013.06.
♦ 5Chave J, Coomes D, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Swenson NG, Zanne AE (2009) Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Ecology Letters 12: 351-366. Zanne AE, Lopez-Gonzalez G, Coomes DA, Ilic J, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Miller RB, Swenson NG, Wiemann MC, Chave J (2009) Data from: Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 6Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 7Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 8FLESHY FRUITS OF INDIGENOUS AND ADVENTIVE PLANTS IN THE DIET OF BIRDS IN FOREST REMNANTS, NELSON, NEW ZEALAND, PETER A. WILLIAMS and BRIAN J. KARL, New Zealand Journal of Ecology (1996) 20(2): 127-145
♦ 9Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 10Ecology of Commanster
♦ 11Dama dama, George A. Feldhamer, Kelly C. Farris-Renner, and Celeste M. Barker, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 317, pp. 1-8 (1988)
♦ 12HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 13Birds and berries: a study of an ecological interaction. Calton, Great Britain, Snow B.K., Snow D.W., 1988, T & AD Poyser. 268 p.
♦ 14del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0