These two Ilex were mentioned recently in a forum thread. One is my favourite - Ilex pernyi. These photos are from May 3. The fruits have hardly any stems, are right up to the branch. Yesterday I came across Ilex cornuta. It was actually cultivars of this that were mentioned as IDs for an unknown holly I posted. This one is a male, so no fruits and the flowers have all fallen off now. Most leaves have three spines, but some have only one on each side at the tip, so that the leaves are squared off like Liriodendron, and some have a spine on each side at the leaf base, so that the leaves look rectangular.
