American Holly
Encyclopedia
Ilex opaca, the American Holly, is a species of holly
, native to the eastern United States
, from coastal Massachusetts
south to central Florida
, and west to southeastern Missouri
and eastern Texas
.
tree growing to 10–20 m tall, exceptionally up to 30 m tall, with a trunk diameter typically up to 50 cm, exceptionally 120 cm. The bark
is light gray, roughened by small warty lumps. The branchlets are stout, green at first and covered with rusty down, later smooth and brown. The winter buds are brown, short, obtuse or acute.
The leaves
are alternate, 5–7.5 cm long and 2–4 cm broad, stiff, yellow green and dull matte to sub-shiny above (distinctly less glossy than the otherwise fairly similar European Holly Ilex aquifolium), often pale yellow beneath; the edges are curved into several sharp, spike-like points, and a wedge-shaped base and acute apex; the midrib is prominent and depressed, the primary veins conspicuous; the petiole
is short, stout, grooved, thickened at base, with a pair of minute stipule
s. The leaves remain on the branches for two to three years, finally falling in the spring when pushed off by growing buds.
The flower
s are greenish white, small, borne in late spring in short pedunculate cymes from the axils of young leaves or scattered along the base of young branches. The calyx is small, four-lobed, imbricate in the bud, acute, margins ciliate, persistent. The corolla is white, with four petal-like lobes united at the base, obtuse, spreading, hypogynous, imbricate in bud. The flower stem is hairy with a minute bract at base. Like all hollies, it is dioecious
, with separate male and female plants; only female plants produce the characteristic red berries. One male can pollenize
several females. Male flowers have four stamens, inserted on the base of the corolla, alternate with its lobes; filaments awl-shaped, exserted in the sterile, much shorter in the sterile flower; anthers attached at the back, oblong, introrse, two-celled, cells opening longitudinally. The pistil on female flowers has a superior ovary, four-celled, rudimentary in staminate flowers; style wanting, stigma sessile, four-lobed; ovules one or two in each cell.
The fruit
is a small red drupe
6–12 mm diameter containing four seed
s; it is often persistent into winter.
tree in forests. It is rare in the north of its range in southern Connecticut, southeastern New York, and isolated areas of Cape Cod, and always small there. It is abundant further south on the southern coast and in the Gulf states, reaching its greatest size on the bottomlands of southern Arkansas and eastern Texas. The branches are short and slender. The root
s are thick and fleshy. It will grow in both dry and swampy soil, but grows slowly.. Ilex opaca var. arenicola, or scrub holly, is found as a shrub component in xeric scrub habitats of the Florida peninsula.
The flowers are pollinated by insects, including bee
s, wasp
s, ant
s, and night-flying moth
s. The berries are reputedly poison
ous to humans, but are important survival food for bird
s, who will eat the berries after other food sources are exhausted. The tree also forms a thick canopy which offers protection for birds from predators and storms. Songbird
s including thrushes
, mockingbird
s, catbird
s, bluebird
s and thrasher
s frequently feed on the berries.
is very pale, tough, close-grained, takes a good polish, and is used for whip-handles, engraving blocks, and cabinet work. It can also be dyed and used as a substitute for ebony. It has a density 0.58 to 0.64. The sap is watery, and contains a bitter substance which possesses tonic properties.
, planted as a shrub
or slower growing ornamental tree. Over 1,000 cultivar
s have been selected, including plants selected for cold tolerance ('Cobalt', a male cultivar, is able to tolerate temperatures as low as −32 °C), growth form (e.g. dwarf forms such as 'Cardinal Hedge', a female plant growing to 1.2 m tall), and color and abundance of fruit (notable female cultivars including the large-berried 'Yule', and the yellow-berried 'Canary' and 'Morgan Gold').
Christmas and holiday season decoration. In English poetry and English stories the Holly is inseparably connected with the merry-making and greetings which gather around the Christmas time. The custom is followed in North America, and holly and mistletoe
are widely used for decoration of homes and churches. The European Holly does not grow in the climate of most of the United States, but the American Holly makes an excellent second choice for it closely resembles the European species. The leaves are similar in outline and toothed and bristled very much the same way, but they are a paler green and the surface gloss is duller than in the European species.
American holly is the state tree of Delaware
.
Holly
Ilex) is a genus of 400 to 600 species of flowering plants in the family Aquifoliaceae, and the only living genus in that family. The species are evergreen and deciduous trees, shrubs, and climbers from tropics to temperate zones world wide....
, native to the eastern United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, from coastal Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
south to central Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, and west to southeastern Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
and eastern Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
.
Description
Ilex opaca is a medium-sized broadleaved evergreenEvergreen
In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant that has leaves in all seasons. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage during the winter or dry season.There are many different kinds of evergreen plants, both trees and shrubs...
tree growing to 10–20 m tall, exceptionally up to 30 m tall, with a trunk diameter typically up to 50 cm, exceptionally 120 cm. The bark
Bark
Bark is the outermost layers of stems and roots of woody plants. Plants with bark include trees, woody vines and shrubs. Bark refers to all the tissues outside of the vascular cambium and is a nontechnical term. It overlays the wood and consists of the inner bark and the outer bark. The inner...
is light gray, roughened by small warty lumps. The branchlets are stout, green at first and covered with rusty down, later smooth and brown. The winter buds are brown, short, obtuse or acute.
The leaves
Leaf
A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....
are alternate, 5–7.5 cm long and 2–4 cm broad, stiff, yellow green and dull matte to sub-shiny above (distinctly less glossy than the otherwise fairly similar European Holly Ilex aquifolium), often pale yellow beneath; the edges are curved into several sharp, spike-like points, and a wedge-shaped base and acute apex; the midrib is prominent and depressed, the primary veins conspicuous; the petiole
Petiole (botany)
In botany, the petiole is the stalk attaching the leaf blade to the stem. The petiole usually has the same internal structure as the stem. Outgrowths appearing on each side of the petiole are called stipules. Leaves lacking a petiole are called sessile, or clasping when they partly surround the...
is short, stout, grooved, thickened at base, with a pair of minute stipule
Stipule
In botany, stipule is a term coined by Linnaeus which refers to outgrowths borne on either side of the base of a leafstalk...
s. The leaves remain on the branches for two to three years, finally falling in the spring when pushed off by growing buds.
Flower
A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproductive structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to effect reproduction, usually by providing a mechanism for the union of sperm with eggs...
s are greenish white, small, borne in late spring in short pedunculate cymes from the axils of young leaves or scattered along the base of young branches. The calyx is small, four-lobed, imbricate in the bud, acute, margins ciliate, persistent. The corolla is white, with four petal-like lobes united at the base, obtuse, spreading, hypogynous, imbricate in bud. The flower stem is hairy with a minute bract at base. Like all hollies, it is dioecious
Plant sexuality
Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes morphological aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
, with separate male and female plants; only female plants produce the characteristic red berries. One male can pollenize
Pollenizer
A pollenizer or polleniser, sometimes pollinizer or polliniser is a plant that provides pollen.In American English, the words pollenizer and pollinator are often confused: A pollinator is the biotic agent that moves the pollen, such as bees, moths, bats, and birds...
several females. Male flowers have four stamens, inserted on the base of the corolla, alternate with its lobes; filaments awl-shaped, exserted in the sterile, much shorter in the sterile flower; anthers attached at the back, oblong, introrse, two-celled, cells opening longitudinally. The pistil on female flowers has a superior ovary, four-celled, rudimentary in staminate flowers; style wanting, stigma sessile, four-lobed; ovules one or two in each cell.
The fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
is a small red drupe
Drupe
In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...
6–12 mm diameter containing four seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
s; it is often persistent into winter.
Ecology
The Ilex opaca species typically grows as an understoryUnderstory
Understory is the term for the area of a forest which grows at the lowest height level below the forest canopy. Plants in the understory consist of a mixture of seedlings and saplings of canopy trees together with understory shrubs and herbs...
tree in forests. It is rare in the north of its range in southern Connecticut, southeastern New York, and isolated areas of Cape Cod, and always small there. It is abundant further south on the southern coast and in the Gulf states, reaching its greatest size on the bottomlands of southern Arkansas and eastern Texas. The branches are short and slender. The root
Root
In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial or aerating . Furthermore, a stem normally occurring below ground is not exceptional either...
s are thick and fleshy. It will grow in both dry and swampy soil, but grows slowly.. Ilex opaca var. arenicola, or scrub holly, is found as a shrub component in xeric scrub habitats of the Florida peninsula.
The flowers are pollinated by insects, including bee
Bee
Bees are flying insects closely related to wasps and ants, and are known for their role in pollination and for producing honey and beeswax. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea, presently classified by the unranked taxon name Anthophila...
s, wasp
Wasp
The term wasp is typically defined as any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. Almost every pest insect species has at least one wasp species that preys upon it or parasitizes it, making wasps critically important in natural control of their...
s, ant
Ant
Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...
s, and night-flying moth
Moth
A moth is an insect closely related to the butterfly, both being of the order Lepidoptera. Moths form the majority of this order; there are thought to be 150,000 to 250,000 different species of moth , with thousands of species yet to be described...
s. The berries are reputedly poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
ous to humans, but are important survival food for bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
s, who will eat the berries after other food sources are exhausted. The tree also forms a thick canopy which offers protection for birds from predators and storms. Songbird
Songbird
A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds . Another name that is sometimes seen as scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin oscen, "a songbird"...
s including thrushes
Thrush (bird)
The thrushes, family Turdidae, are a group of passerine birds that occur worldwide.-Characteristics:Thrushes are plump, soft-plumaged, small to medium-sized birds, inhabiting wooded areas, and often feed on the ground or eat small fruit. The smallest thrush may be the Forest Rock-thrush, at and...
, mockingbird
Mockingbird
Mockingbirds are a group of New World passerine birds from the Mimidae family. They are best known for the habit of some species mimicking the songs of other birds and the sounds of insects and amphibians, often loudly and in rapid succession. There are about 17 species in three genera...
s, catbird
Gray Catbird
The Gray Catbird , also spelled Grey Catbird, is a medium-sized northern American perching bird of the mimid family. It is the only member of the "catbird" genus Dumetella...
s, bluebird
Bluebird
The bluebirds are a group of medium-sized, mostly insectivorous or omnivorous birds in the genus Sialia of the thrush family . Bluebirds are one of the few thrush genera in the Americas. They have blue, or blue and red, plumage...
s and thrasher
Thrasher
Thrashers are a New World group of passerine birds related to mockingbirds and New World catbirds. Like these, they are in the Mimidae family. There are 15 species in one large and 4 monotypic genera.These do not form a clade but are a phenetic assemblage...
s frequently feed on the berries.
Cultivation and uses
The woodWood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
is very pale, tough, close-grained, takes a good polish, and is used for whip-handles, engraving blocks, and cabinet work. It can also be dyed and used as a substitute for ebony. It has a density 0.58 to 0.64. The sap is watery, and contains a bitter substance which possesses tonic properties.
Ornamental plant
Ilex opaca is often cultivated by plant nurseries for use as a broadleaf evergreen ornamental plantOrnamental plant
Ornamental plants are plants that are grown for decorative purposes in gardens and landscape design projects, as house plants, for cut flowers and specimen display...
, planted as a shrub
Shrub
A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
or slower growing ornamental tree. Over 1,000 cultivar
Cultivar
A cultivar'Cultivar has two meanings as explained under Formal definition. When used in reference to a taxon, the word does not apply to an individual plant but to all those plants sharing the unique characteristics that define the cultivar. is a plant or group of plants selected for desirable...
s have been selected, including plants selected for cold tolerance ('Cobalt', a male cultivar, is able to tolerate temperatures as low as −32 °C), growth form (e.g. dwarf forms such as 'Cardinal Hedge', a female plant growing to 1.2 m tall), and color and abundance of fruit (notable female cultivars including the large-berried 'Yule', and the yellow-berried 'Canary' and 'Morgan Gold').
Holiday decoration
Holly is a popular winterWinter
Winter is the coldest season of the year in temperate climates, between autumn and spring. At the winter solstice, the days are shortest and the nights are longest, with days lengthening as the season progresses after the solstice.-Meteorology:...
Christmas and holiday season decoration. In English poetry and English stories the Holly is inseparably connected with the merry-making and greetings which gather around the Christmas time. The custom is followed in North America, and holly and mistletoe
Mistletoe
Mistletoe is the common name for obligate hemi-parasitic plants in several families in the order Santalales. The plants in question grow attached to and within the branches of a tree or shrub.-Mistletoe in the genus Viscum:...
are widely used for decoration of homes and churches. The European Holly does not grow in the climate of most of the United States, but the American Holly makes an excellent second choice for it closely resembles the European species. The leaves are similar in outline and toothed and bristled very much the same way, but they are a paler green and the surface gloss is duller than in the European species.
American holly is the state tree of Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
.