Ilex denticulata - Nilgiri Holly

Nilgiri Holly is a tree up to 15 m tall, with bark 1.3 cm thick, grey, smooth; branchlets hairless. Leaves are simple, alternate, estipulate; leaf-stalk 1-1.3 cm, slender, grooved above; blade 5-16 x 2-3 cm, elliptic-oblong, obovate or elliptic, base wedge-shaped or somewhat pointed, tip tapering, margin toothed or sawtoothed, leathery, hairless; lateral nerves 6-9 pairs, pinnate, slender, prominent, rising up, intercostae netveined. Flowers are unisexual, white, 4-merous, 6 mm, across. Male flowers are borne in branched short in leaf-axils cymes; sepal-tube cup-shaped, 0.5 mm, sepals 4, persistent broad, somewhat pointed. Petals are 4, 4 x 2 mm, white, oblong, fused at the very base; stamens 4, adhering to the base of the flower; filaments subulate; anthers oblong, dorsifixed; disc absent. Female flowers are borne in fascicles; sepal-cup as in male flowers. Petals free; staminodes hypogynous; ovary ovoid, syncarpous, style very short. Fruit is a drupe, spherical, 6-7 mm across, brown, smooth, with persistent sepal-cup and 4-lobed stigma. Nilgiri Holly is found in SW India, Sri Lanka, China (S. Yunnan).