An evergreen tree, hardy in the warmest parts of the British Isles, with deep green leathery leaves of variable shape, oval, obovate or rounded, 21⁄4 to 4 in. long, 11⁄8 to 21⁄4 in. wide, sometimes entire, sometimes with spine-tipped teeth near the apex, more rarely spiny throughout, apex acuminate and spine-tipped or often blunt or rounded, base wedge-shaped or slightly heart-shaped, decurrent onto the leaf-stalk, venation usually prominent beneath; leaf-stalk winged owing to the decurrence of the blade, grooved beneath, 3⁄16 to 5⁄8 in. long. Fruits ellipsoid to globose, red, about 3⁄8 in. wide.
Native of Madeira, with varieties or subspecies in the Canary Islands and the Azores; cultivated in Britain since 1760. It thrives very well in the Isle of Wight and in Ireland, and no doubt in other mild parts. It has been confounded with I. aquifolium and has hybridised with it in gardens (see I. × altaclarensis). It differs from I. aquifolium in the distinctly winged leaf-stalk, at each side of which there is a groove beneath, but this character shows up clearly only on dried specimens. The leaves are mostly entire and the spines, when present, are shorter and usually forward-pointing. Also the venation is usually prominent beneath and the leaves are mostly longer and relatively wider.
var. azorica Loes. I. p. subsp. azorica (Loes.) Turin – Leaves small, 1 to 21⁄4 in. long, ovate, elliptic or rounded, entire or with very few forward-pointing spines. Azores.
var. platyphylla (Webb & Berth.) Loes. I. platyphylla Webb & Berth.; I. aquifolium var. platyphylla Dallim., in syn., not T. Moore nor Goeppert – Leaves mostly ovate, larger than in the typical state of the species, being 4 to 6 or even 8 in. long, 21⁄4 to 41⁄2 in. wide, thick and leathery in texture, the margins often entire but sometimes set with short or long spines, pointing forward and irregular in number and size. Fruits deep red, globose, 3⁄8 in. in diameter.
Native of the Canary Islands mainly but also found on Madeira, where, according to Loesener, it intergrades with typical I. perado. Dallimore (Yew, Holly and Box, p. 134) treated this holly as a species and placed under it various garden hollies which are almost certainly hybrids of the I. × altaclarensis group. The holly which Moore described as I. aquifolium var. platyphylla is not I. perado var. platyphylla but probably another form of I. × altaclarensis.
I. perado var. platyphylla was described (as a species) in 1842 but may have been in cultivation earlier and, like typical I. perado, cultivated as a greenhouse shrub.
For I. perado aurea of gardens see I. × altaclarensis ‘Belgica Aurea’.