A beautiful succedaneum, however, may, we believe, be found in the American Holly (Ilex opaca), which indeed very closely resembles the foreign species in almost every particular. The leaves are waved or irregular in surface and outline, though not so much so as those of the latter, and their color is a much lighter shade of green. Like those of the foreign plant, they are armed on the edges with thorny prickles, and the surface is brilliant and polished. The American Holly is seen in the greatest perfection on the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia, and the lower part of New Jersey. There it thrives best upon loose, dry, and gravelly soils. Michaux says it is also common through all the extreme southern states, and in West Tennessee, in which latter places it abounds on the margins of shady swamps, where the soil is cool and fertile. In such spots it often reaches forty feet in height, and twelve or fifteen inches in diameter.
