Holly, Yaupon ‘Weeping’

Weeping Yaupon Holly (Ilex ‘Folsom’s Weeping’) is a dense, upright spreading evergreen shrub or small tree that can grow 8′ to 15′ tall (sometimes 30′), but only 4′ to 6′ wide with a weeping form. It is a trouble-free, fast growing hedge or background for flower borders. The stiff but drooping branches shear well as topiary, espalier or accent tree.

Yaupon Holly is durable and long-lived with a native distribution Southeast Virginia to Florida, west to Arkansas, southeast Oklahoma, and south central Texas.

LEAVES are small, neat, narrow; alternate and serrate with rounded tips 1-1/2″ long. They are shiny dark green above, pale below. If you grab one the “wrong” way you will encounter the teeth as spiny and sharp.

The FLOWERS are ¼” in diameter, with a white four-lobed corolla. The non-showy male and female flowers appear on separate plants from April to May. Nursery plants are typically female (fruiting) and are propagated by cuttings.

FRUIT follows in the form of brilliant red berries (yellow on some cultivars) containing four SEED pits that are scattered by birds. Best production of red fruit occurs when shrub gets half a day of sun or more.

When lower branches are removed, the tree’s interestingly-contorted multiple TRUNKS are revealed.

The BARK is smooth, light gray with slender, hairy shoots.

The TWIGS are slender, flexible, initially purplish brown, velvety, but turning light gray and glabrous. The BUDS are very small and dark.

Yaupon Holly is a versatile plant found in moist or well drained, sandy, loamy, clay or gravelly soils that tolerates cold, heat, drought and poor drainage. CaCO3 is not tolerated well by this species.

WILDLIFE depends on the fruit as a late winter food source. Many birds, including Florida Duck, American Black Duck, Mourning Dove, Ruffed Grouse, Bobwhite Quail, Wild Turkey, Northern Flicker, sapsuckers, Cedar waxwing, Eastern Bluebird, American Robin, Gray Catbird, Northern Mockingbird, and White-throated Sparrow eat the Yaupon berries and employ the dense branches for nesting sites. Mammals that eat the fruit include Nine-banded Armadillo, American Black Bear, Gray Fox, raccoon and skunks. The foliage and twigs are browsed by White-tailed Deer and the flowers attract bees for several weeks in the spring. The Henrys Elfin butterfly feeds on the nectar.

The tea-like liquid, made from brewing leaves and twigs of Yaupon Holly, containing high levels of caffeine, known as “black drink” was used by Spaniards in coastal areas of “New Spain” and by the Coree and Poteskeets Indians tribes of the Outer Banks as a sacred drink for rituals and ceremonies. The Native Americans believed it purified the drinker and purged him of anger and falsehoods. After consuming large quantities they purged themselves by vomiting, thus the species name vomitoria.