Ilex purpurea seed

LATIN NAME: Ilex purpurea

COMMON NAME: Red Holly

The red holly is a handsome, upright, many-branched, evergreen shrub or small tree of the warm hills, and its fine, oval or lance-shaped, glossy, sharply toothed leaves and its small, inconspicuous, whitish flowers, followed by the fine, round, red, glossy, many-fruited clusters, have made it a treasured and fine plant of the region. It grows as an upright, many-branched, evergreen shrub or small tree, reaching up to ten metres or more, with the upright, branching stems bearing the alternate, oval or lance-shaped, pointed, glossy, sharply toothed leaves and, through the late spring, the small, inconspicuous, whitish flowers, followed by the fine, round, red, glossy, few-seeded fruits in the dense clusters. It is a species of the flowering shrub in the holly family, and it is native to the warm hills of the eastern Asia, while it is treasured for its fine, red-berried form, and it is known as the red holly.

In the holly family it is the glossy, red-berried holly of the warm hills, a shrub that keeps the winter garden bright with its dense clusters of red fruit.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The red holly roots and leaves are a familiar subject in the traditional plant chemistry of the eastern Asia, and the constituents have been examined with the greatest care by the researchers across the world. The botanists have mapped its place in the holly family and the warm hills of the region, and the wildlife ecologists have watched the winter birds come to the dense clusters of the glossy, red fruits. The plant is best appreciated as a subject of study rather than a casual remedy, and the growers of the evergreen, berry-bearing shrubs keep it in their catalogues.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

In the winter garden, the red holly is the glossy shrub of the red berry clusters. Its small, whitish flowers feed the insects, its dense clusters of the red fruits feed the birds of the winter, and the dense, evergreen growth gives cover and shelter through the cold months. It is treasured for the glossy, toothed leaves and the bright, red fruit clusters, and it grows well in the moist, well-drained ground of the sheltered spot. Red-berried, glossy and winter-bright.

Clean the seeds out of the red berries and give them a cold, damp rest in a bag of moist sand in the fridge, then sow them shallowly in pots of loamy, free-draining soil, keep them moist and set the pots in a bright, sheltered spot, and they’ll come along steadily.