ilex

noun

1. Holm oak (Quercus ilex).

   “There is a point of strand / Near Vada's tower and town; and on one side / The treacherous marsh divides it from the land, / Shadowed by pine and ilex forests wide, / And on the other creeps eternally, / Through muddy weeds, the shallow, sullen sea.”

   “Many nights, though autumnal mists were spread around, I passed under an ilex—many times I have supped on arbutus berries and chestnuts, making a fire, gypsylike, on the ground […]”

   “Sometimes I lost track of them and had to hunt round in a circle, thrusting through sharp-scented bushes, scratching myself on various plants which were still new to me: resinaceous rock-roses, juniper, ilex [translating chênes verts], yellow and white asphodel.”

2. Any of the numerous trees or shrubs of the genus Ilex.