native plants – Page 7 – Extension Master Gardener Volunteers of Durham County

Dear Reader: We are reposting this article because Ilex vomitoria is a tough, reliable, native plant that everyone should know about. It’s got flowers, berries, and evergreen leaves! And how about it’s name? I. vomitoria – there is a story there.

Original article and reposted article by Wendy Diaz, NC State Master Gardner ^SMvolunteer

Berries of Ilex vomitoria. Image credit: Wendy Diaz

In 2020, I wrote an article about receiving platinum certification from the New Hope Audubon Society (NHAS) for a bird friendly yard. It was titled Gold is Good but Platinum is Better. Since then, I continue to replace exotic species with native plants. At one point I removed four large severely-pruned Burford hollies (Ilex cornuta ‘Burford’), which formed the foundation hedge along the front of the house.

Left: Original landscape using exotic Burford holly as a foundation hedge. Right: After the removal of Burford holly and replanted with native dwarf Yaupon holly . Image credit: Wendy Diaz

NHAS suggested native alternatives such as dwarf Yaupon holly, (Illex glabra) or sweet pepper bush (Clethra anifolia) to replace the old hedge. I chose and purchased three, 3 gallon Ilex vomitoria ‘Nana’ or Dwarf Yaupon Holly, from my local nursery, to anchor this west facing 12 foot long front bed. After the old hollies were removed, I had additional space in front of the new shrubs to plant native herbaceous perennials like Coreopsis, ‘Cosmic Eye’, Eastern Grey Goldenrod, (Solidago nemoralis) and Bee Balm, (Monarda didyma). This increased the diversity of plants in my front bed.

Some Basics:

Yaupon Holly, (Ilex vomitoria) is a broadleaf evergreen shrub or small tree and a great landscape plant. It is also a native.^[1] They are naturally adapted to the maritime forest of the North Carolina coastal plain and can grow on dunes as well as in wet swamps and are more tolerant of heat than other hollies.^[2] They can get as tall as 25 feet and form thickets. They can have multiple trunks.

The species prefers acidic, organically rich, well-drained soils with medium moisture. They can take full sun or part shade conditions. There are no serious insect or disease problems but avoid heavily compacted wet soil as this can be stressful. Once established they tolerate drought. The branches have smooth light gray bark but the young stems are burgundy. The leaves are small, thick, leathery, evergreen, and elliptical-shaped. They average 1 to 3 inches long and have a crenate or toothed leaf margin ^[4].

The leaves contain caffeine. Native Americans would dry the leaves and make a ceremonial emetic drink. When consumed in large quantities it would induce vomiting; hence the Latin name vomitoria applied to this species ^[2].

Spring Flowers

The flowers are tiny, white and fragrant. They appear in April and attract many different bee species. The Yaupon holly is dioecious meaning the male and female flowers occur on separate plants. Only female Yaupon hollies produce the attractive red berries (drupes) that form in the fall and last into the winter months. The light gray bark contrasts well with the red berries giving it great winter interest ^[4].

*Spring Bud and flowers of Ilex vomitoria.* Image credit: NC State Plant toolbox, Camelia TWU CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Wildlife Value

It is a larval host plant for the Henry’s Elfin Butterfly (Callophrys henrici) and the Holly Azure Butterfly (Celastrina idella). ^{^[4]}

The genus Ilex supports the specialized bee Colletes banksi^{^[4]}. Small mammals and birds eat the red berries. Birds also like to nest and shelter in the thick branches of my weeping yaupon holly, (Ilex vomitoria ‘Pendula’). Our resident green anole hides in the thick branches as well.

Left: Henry’s elfin butterfly (Callophrys henrici) Image credit: Flickr, Frode Jacobsen. Right: Holly Azure butterfly (Celastrina idella). Image credit: Flickr, Gail Hampshire

Cultivars

There are different forms of this cultivar making it useful in a wide variety of areas in the garden landscape. It can be used as a hedge, foundation shrub, windbreak, screen or specimen plant. All cultivars can be clipped and shaped making it an ideal choice for topiary or bonsai^[4].

Ilex vomitoria, ‘Pendula’, is a weeping form which makes it an ideal specimen tree)^[5]. It can grow 15 to 30 feet in height and get 6 to12 feet wide. Mine tends to get thick and twiggy and I frequently have to prune dead branches from its center.

Ilex vomitoria ‘Nana’, is dense, compact , rounded and mounded in form. This dwarf cultivar typically grows to 4 feet in height and has brittle, close-knit branches. It is a slow growing cultivar and spreads wider (3 to 5 feet spread) than it grows tall. The leaves tend to be darker green on the top than beneath the plant and new leaves are a yellow-green in color. The red berries (drupes) are not as common or as visible on this cultivar as in ‘Pendula’ but they will occur if the flowers of the female plants are pollinated^[6]. This cultivar is popularly used for bonsai.

Some other dwarf cultivars are: ‘Bordeaux®’, ‘Schillings’, and Taylor’s Rudolph’. ‘Taylor’s Rudolph’ is reliably female and so will have berries if pollinated.

Ilex vomitoria, ‘Virginia Dare’, is taller and widely used for hedges. It will produce berries.

Ilex vomitoria, ‘Will Fleming’ , is a pencil-thin upright form.

*Ilex vomitoria ‘Pendula’,* Image credit: Wendy Diaz

This evergreen plant has definite appeal during all four seasons in the garden landscape with fragrant flowers that attract pollinators in the spring, glossy green foliage in the summer, attractive red berries in the fall that attract birds and evergreen foliage in the winter. If you need a shrub for a border, hedge, foundation plant or you just need a specimen tree, consider a cultivar of Yaupon holly. Choose the form you need for the space you have and it will improve the aesthetic value and ornamental interest in your garden landscape year round while also providing support for wildlife.

Resources and Additional Information:

Article Short Link: https://wp.me/p2nIr1-3Zm

Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata)

By Wendy Diaz EMGV

Foreground: Spotted Wintergreen in bloom near base of Beech Tree. All photos taken on June 4, 2021 by Wendy Diaz unless otherwise stated.

In North Carolina, one of the advantages of my removal of invasive ground cover mechanically rather than chemically and changing my gardening habits – such as no longer mulching with three inches of pine straw – is that remarkable tiny native plants start to appear beneath my beech tree (Fagus sylvatica) like the Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) without any more intervention from me. (I wrote about another diminutive native plant beneath my beech tree, the Cranefly Orchid (Tipularia discolor), in the blog post of July 30, 2020^{^[1]}).

Distribution

I feel fortunate that I have a few plants of this smallest of evergreen shrubs peeking above the dead leaves and pine needles in my woodland garden; although it is fairly common in North Carolina, it is rare, if not endangered, in its northern range near my home town in Ontario and also in Maine^[2]. It has become so rare in its most northern range of Canada that there is a recovery program in Ontario^[3]^{,^[4]}.

Spotted Wintergreen in full bloom just a few inches high above the leaf litter.

Growing Conditions

Spotted Wintergreen (Chimaphila maculata) is a native, evergreen rhizomatous wildflower or dwarf shrub found on the shaded forest floor. It only reaches a height of 3 to 5 inches tall which makes it a good ground cover if you can get it to spread^[5]; it is slow growing. The habit form of the Spotted Wintergreen is classified as a sub-shrub and is considered in some literature as a small broadleaf evergreen shrub^[6]. The woody plant is easily found in the forests of the Piedmont due to the conspicuous white mid-rib of the dark blueish-green leaves which contrast with the light brown of the surrounding leaf litter. The genus name is a combination of the Greek word for winter (cheima) and to love (philein). Other common names include Striped Wintergreen, Striped Prince’s Pine, Rheumatism Root^[7] and Spotted pipsissewa^[8]. Pipsissewa comes from the Cree Indian word pipsisikweu which means ‘break into small pieces’ because mistakenly, they believed that a substance in its leaves would ‘break-up’ kidney stones. Native Americans also used to make tea from the leaves to treat rheumatism and stomach maladies. The foliage is avoided by deer. It has a wide range in Eastern North America from Quebec to Florida and as far south as Central America. It prefers medium to dry forest floors with medium shade and acidic soils. More precisely, it requires dappled sunlight (shade through the canopy all day) or deep shade (less than 2 hours to no direct sunlight) and sandy soils on the dry side with good drainage^[9]. It has a stoloniferous root system and spreads by underground stems or rhizomes. The plant does not do well if its roots are disturbed. It reproduces both vegetatively and by seed reproduction following light wildfires.

Conspicuous white mid-rib of the dark blueish-green leaves of the Spotted Wintergreen plant.

Leaf

The evergreen leaves are a deep blue-green color with a white stripe along the central vein of the leaf with a waxy or leathery appearance. As the larger leaves widen, the white stripe spreads laterally to give a mottled appearance giving it its most distinguishing characteristic. Dentate leaf margins have shallow widely-spaced teeth. The narrow ovate-shaped leaves have an opposite and whorled arrangement and are about 1 to 3 inches in length and less than an inch in width. The leaves are attached to a semi-woody stout reddish-brown stem.

Pronounced white midrib of whorl of bluish-green leathery leaves of the Spotted Wintergreen along with stem with dual buds.

Flower

In late May to early June in the Piedmont of North Carolina, small fragrant, pretty white flowers appear from spherical white buds. The flowers are bell shape and open downward or hang (nodding) from the top of long reddish-brown stalk that grows up from the leaf whorl. Each stalk is topped by 2 to 5 curving stems from which clusters of 2 to 5 flowers emerge; looking much like an old fashioned lamp post.

Top Photo: Spotted Wintergreen buds and stalk look like tiny lamposts. Middle Photo: Partially opened blossom, fully opened blossom and missing blossom on one reddish stalk emerging from the whorl of waxy bluish-green leaves. Bottom Photo: Closeup of blossoms and green pistil (early seed pod). Photo taken by Wendy Diaz at Raven Rock State Park on June 7 2015.

Each flower of ½ to ¾ inch diameter has 5 waxy white petals that have small scattered brown spots, 5 light green sepals and ten yellowish or tan colored stamens and a green pistil. After pollination the flower turns upward so that the resultant small (less than an inch in length and 1/3 inch wide) seed capsule that forms is erect and eventually matures to a dark brown color. The dried capsule splits and releases tiny seeds

I was out of town this year when a few buds blossomed on the plants beneath the beech tree. I suspect there wasn’t a bigger show this year than there was in 2021 because we had a very wet winter and spring and they prefer drier soils or I am disturbing their sensitive roots when I often walk over to their colony to admire them.