Yaupon holly : Ilex vomitoria

Kingdom : Plantae Phylum : Magnoliophyta Class : Magnoliopsida Order : Celastrales Family : Aquifoliaceae Genus : Ilex Species : vomitoria Ait Common name : Yaupon holly, cassine

Description:

A large shrub or small tree to 8 m tall with numerous root sprouts forming dense thickets, twigs puberulent.

Leaves leather, evergreen, deep green and shiny above, pale green beneath, oval to elliptic, 1-4.5 cm long, 0.8-2 cm wide, margins crenate and revolute. Flowers imperfect, on separate plants. Calyx 2 mm broad, coralla 5-5.5 mm broad, petals united at the base, white.

Pistillate flowers solitary or in 2’s or 3’s in axils of leaves or from nodes just below the leaves; flower parts in 4’s.

Staminate flowers in fascicles in leaf axils, floral parts in 4’s. Fruit a drupe, red, rarely yellow, lustrous, globose, 4-6 mm in diameter, seeds (pyrenes) 4, irregularly grooved on back, 3-4 mm long. Habitat: Common in maritime forests, upland semiopen woodlands, fence rows, pine flatwoods, sandy hammocks, sand dunes and sandhills. Distribution: Virginia south to central Florida, west to Alabama, Mississippi, central Texas and north to southeastern Oklahoma and Arkansas.

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