Wild trees and shrubs that hold on to their fruit well into
winter are favorites of many people in the U.S. One of ours is
the winterberry whose fruits are now at the peak of their
brilliant red color. Drive along roads that lead you through
swamps or similar wetlands and your chances of seeing these
flashy plants are very good.
It is after these shrubs have lost their leaves, but are still
tenaciously holding onto their fruits, that many people have a
hard time believing that they belong to the holly genus, Ilex
(EYE-lex). "Gray’s Manual of Botany" lists ten species
for eastern North America, along with several sub-species, and
around half of them are deciduous as is the winterberry.
The typical holly of the Christmas season, the American holly,
(Ilex americana, pronounced EYE-lex a-mer-i-CAY-na), naturally
has brilliant red fruits along with its rich glossy green leaves
having spiny margins. The plastic plant manufacturers have done
an exceptionally good job of imitating the American holly, so
good that I often have to touch it to see if it’s the real thing.
The American holly trees of the South can reach a height of
around 50 feet or slightly more as opposed to our winterberry,
also called northern or deciduous holly, that generally grows to
around six to ten feet. Its species name, "Ilex
verticillata" (ver-tiss-i-LAY-ta) tells us that it is a true
holly and that its flowers grow in whorled clusters in the axils
of the twigs.
I came to know the winterberry the first year (1964) I worked
at the Ridges Sanctuary at Baileys Harbor. Cross the first
bridge between Sandy and Wintergreen Ridges and you’ll find some
growing right next to the north end of the bridge near the edge
of the wet swale. They grow elsewhere there too, and I became
especially fond of snowshoeing the swales "back in" to
several areas where these fruit-laden tall shrubs, always hugging
the edges of the wet swales, could be found.
A few weeks ago we found plenty of the so-called Michigan
holly shrubs (a different name for the winterberry) growing near
the south shore of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan northeast of
Houghton. The largest stands of these spectacular plants we’ve
ever encountered were growing along the roads running through the
swamps in the area near the southeastern and eastern shores of
Shawano Lake – hundreds of them. Our friend, Carl Scholz, also
has told of coming upon dense stands of them in the wetlands in
the Waupaca area while deer hunting there.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the winterberry having
such large quantities of brilliant fruit, even well into winter
when the plant has lost its foliage, would attract much attention
in all parts of its broad range resulting in a host of colloquial
names. Here are some of the names: Christmas berry, fever bush,
coralberry, Michigan holly, northern holly, deciduous holly,
swamp holly, striped alder and black alder. The last two names
can be confusing because the shrub is not in the alder genus (A
lnus) but rather in the holly genus, Ilex.
Perhaps it is be cause its leaves turn black before falling,
resembles the alder and grows in wet areas that it has received
the black alder name in some parts of its broad range extending
from Prince Edward Island and Ontario in Canada, into Michigan
and Wisconsin and south and east to Maryland, Virginia and
Indiana.
I’ve never seen a shrub, when at the peak of its flowering,
that is walked by and unnoticed by so many people. The white
blossoms are extremely tiny and short-stalked as they develop in
the axils of the shrub. The plants are dioecious (die-E-shus)
meaning that they are either male or female. The flowers look
alike but the male blossoms, usually several to a cluster,
contain the pollen-bearing stamens while the female blossoms,
which tend to be singular, contain the pistils that eventually
will form in to the rich-colored fruit.
One of the unusual qualities of the leaves of the winterberry
is that they make a fairly good substitute for oriental tea.
They contain a substance that is not too unlike caffeine.
Another of its relatives of the South, locally called Cassina,
has the horrible scientific name of "Ilex vomitoria."
Guess what ingesting this substance will probably make you do!
Perhaps the best known and widely used relative of the
winterberry grows in South America, Ilex paraguayensis, better
known as Paraguay tea. Some of you may have seen pictures of a
group of gauchos, cowboys of the pampas, sitting around a
campfire sipping their hot tea, called mate (MAH-tay), through a
drinking-straw-like tube. It is usually sipped through a tube
due to the particles of leaves and stems of the Ilex which float
to the top of the stimulating beverage.
Native plants in your area can, through your study and
learning, become regular friends afield during all seasons of the
year. In fact just the sight of a lush northern holly shrub
adorned with hundreds of eye-catching red berries is my October
"cup of tea!"
Charlotte Lukes examines the sulphur shelf mushroom,
which can produce one of the largest colonial masses of any fungi in this area.
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate
on 10/25/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
