Ilex opaca 2, America Holly, pistillate flowers, Howard County, Md, Helen Lowe Metzman
American Holly. An actual tree filled with flowers that bees love and tolerates shade. Here is a series of male and female flowers, each tree is a single sex, so you want both males and females to provide pollen, nectar, and produce berries for everyone. Some of the best collecting I have ever had were off of blooming Ilex opaca. Specimen and picture by Helen Lowe Metzman.
We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
We are resolved into the supreme air,
We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,
With our young lives each spring impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
- Oscar Wilde. Original public domain image from Flickr