Yaupon holly

Appearance

Yaupon holly is an evergreen shrub or small tree reaching 5–9 meters tall, with smooth, light gray bark and slender, hairy shoots. The leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptical with a rounded apex and crenate or coarsely serrated margin, 1-4.5 cm long and 1–2 cm broad, glossy dark green above, slightly paler below. The flowers are 5–5.5 mm diameter, with a white four-lobed corolla. The fruit is a small round, shiny, and red drupe 4–6 mm diameter containing four pits, which are dispersed by birds eating the fruit. The species may be distinguished from the similar ''Ilex cassine'' by its smaller leaves with a rounded, not acute apex.

Naming

''Ilex vomitoria'' is a common landscape plant in the Southeastern United States. The most common cultivars are slow-growing shrubs popular for their dense, evergreen foliage and their adaptability to pruning into hedges of various shapes. These include:
⤷ 'Folsom Weeping' — weeping cultivar
⤷ 'Grey's Littleleaf'/'Grey's Weeping' — weeping cultivar
⤷ 'Nana'/'Compacta' — dwarf female clone usually remaining below 1 m in height.
⤷ 'Pride of Houston' — female clone similar to type but featuring improvements in form, fruiting, and foliage.
⤷ 'Schilling's Dwarf'/'Stokes Dwarf' — dwarf male clone that grows no more than 0.6 m tall and 1.2 m wide.
⤷ 'Will Flemming' — male clone featuring a columnar growth habit.

Habitat

''I. vomitoria'' occurs in the United States from Maryland south to Florida and west to Oklahoma and Texas. A disjunct population occurs in the Mexican state of Chiapas. It generally occurs in coastal areas in well-drained sandy soils, and can be found on the upper edges of brackish and salt marshes, sandy hammocks, coastal sand dunes, inner-dune depressions, sandhills, maritime forests, nontidal forested wetlands, well-drained forests and pine flatwoods.
The fruit are an important food for 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. 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.

Uses

Native Americans used the leaves and stems to brew a tea, commonly thought to be called ''asi'' or black drink for male-only purification and unity rituals. The ceremony included vomiting, and Europeans incorrectly believed that it was ''Ilex vomitoria'' that caused it . The active ingredients, like those of the related yerba mate and guayusa plants, are actually caffeine and theobromine, and the vomiting either was learned or resulted from the great quantities in which they drank the beverage coupled with fasting. Others believe the Europeans improperly assumed the black drink to be the tea made from ''Ilex vomitoria'' when it was likely an entirely different drink made from various roots and herbs and did have emetic properties.

In 2013 a company in Cat Spring, Texas began selling yaupon tea online for people interested in the local food movement. Other companies have opened in Florida and Georgia.