Ilex cornuta Lindl. & Paxton

Chinese Holly

Shrub

Perennial

Vascular

Chinese Holly is an introduced evergreen shrub or small tree in the Holly family (Aquifoliaceae). It is native to eastern China and Korea. Chinese Holly is commonly planted as an ornamental, and has escaped throughout Alabama. Chinese Holly can be found in disturbed woodlands, floodplain forests, in urban woodlands, and along fence rows. It is a shrub or small tree up to 25 feet in height. The bark is smooth and gray in color. Leaves are alternate, petiolate, quadrangular-oblong to ovate in outline, thick and leathery in texture, and glabrous. The tip of the leaf has a spine that is often reflexed. The margins vary from having five large spines along each side to entire with a single spine at the apex. Chinese Holly is dioecious (separate male and female plants). Flowers are produced in cymes in the leaf axils on twigs of the previous season's growth. Male flowers have 4 sepals, 4 greenish-yellow petals and 4 stamens that are as long as or longer than the petals. Female flowers have 4 sepals, 4 greenish-yellow petals, 4 sterile stamens slightly shorter than the petals, and a single 4-lobed stigma. The fruit is a globose, red drupe with 4 stony seed (pyrenes). Chinese Holly cultivars include 'Burford' and 'Nellie R. Stevens'.—A. Diamond

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Not Native

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