ILEX, the HOLM-OAK, or EVER-GREEN OAK, in botany, a genus of the tetrandria-tetragynia class. The calix has four teeth; the corolla is rotated; it has no stylus; and the berry contains four seeds. There are five species, none of them natives of Britain. The kermes of the shops adheres and is gathered off the branches of the ilex aquifolium. The kermes is a round grain about the bulk of a pea. These grains appear full of small reddish ovula, or animalcules, of which they are the nidus. The kermes is a grateful mild restringent and corroborant.