American Holly - Ilex opaca

Aquifoliaceae - Holly family

A Year With the Trees tree No. 9

American Holly

Ilex opaca

Where to find:  Around Hot Springs, NC, on the entrance road to the spa is one beautiful place.  On the Blue Ridge Parkway near Mt. Pisgah in another place.  I also visit this tree at the Botanical Gardens of Asheville

The American Holly is part of the family called Aquifoliaceae.  This family has three species that grow in the Appalachian Mountains.  Ilex montana, Ilex opaca, and Ilex verticilalta.

Aquifoliaceae is a family of about 400 species. Most all of these species belong to the genus Ilex, also known as the hollies. They are mostly evergreen trees or shrubs, though some are deciduous and lose their leaves seasonally. 

This family is characterized by having alternate, simple, and often evergreen leaves. This family has small flowers and berrylike drupes.  The flowers are dioecious.  This means that the male and female parts are on separate flowers and separate plants.  Drupes are fruits with a fleshy outer part and a seed inside, like a peach.

Winter:

buds and twigs

bark
fruit
leaves

American Holly with beautiful ripe drupes and leaves with sharp pointed tips

The American Holly drupes in December

Blue jays, Thrushes, robins, Catbirds, Mockingbirds, Red-bellied woodpeckers, and Wild turkey, eat the berry-like drupes of American holly. Raccoon and deer also eat the berry-like drupes. Each one of these drupes has four seeds and will ripen on the tree from Sept. till December.  They will remain bright red on the tree through the winter months, providing food all winter long for many birds and mammals.  I have read that these berry-like drupes are poisonous to humans.

I am so very interested in learning more about birds this year and the trees that the birds are visiting.

The American Holly tree offers protection in it's canopy for birds from storms and predators year round with all the sharp points on the end of every leaf.

To see a holly tree on a snowy day with a Redbird or Robin sitting in it's branches always brings a smile to my face and a sense of gratitude to my heart.

Spring:
 leaves, flowers, fruits

You can always identify this tree by its shiny-green leaves. The red berries can be seen on the female holly trees during most of the year. The beautiful white wood has been used for building pianos and organs. Birds love these berries and disperse the seeds which help propagate this tree.

"And as, when all the summer trees are seen so bright and green, the Holly leaves a sober hue display less bright than they.   But when the bare and wintry woods we see, what then so cheerful as the Holly-tree?"
Author: Robert Southey
Source: The Holly-Tree

The American Holly - Ilex opaca

This American Holly lives at the Asheville Botanical Gardens.  www.ashevillebotanicalgardens.org


Summer:
leaves, fruit

American Holly in June

American Holly, Ilex opaca

North Carolina Holly Tree.  Photo by R. B. Priddy

North Carolina Holly Tree by R. B. Priddy

There are three co-champion American Holly Trees in the United States. The largest one of these three is in Alexandria, Virginia. It is 68 feet high and 141 inches in circumference. To look at the Big Tree Registry, go to http://www.americanforests.org/.

Fall:
leaves, fruit

American Holly - Ilex Opaca - in September.
  The holly drupes are all over the tree; most are red and some are green.  

The American Holly Tree

The American Holly Tree

The green berries that are in one of these photos are immature berries that will turn red in a few weeks. These berries grow on the female American Holly tree. This American Holly lives on the Blue Ridge Parkway near Mt. Pisgah. 

Becky