Ilex vomitoria Ait.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Ilex vomitoria' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/ilex/ilex-vomitoria/). Accessed 2024-03-29.

Genus

Common Names

  • Yaupon

Synonyms

  • I. cassine Walt., not L.

Glossary

apex
(pl. apices) Tip. apical At the apex.
axillary
Situated in an axil.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
ovate
Egg-shaped; broadest towards the stem.

References

There are no active references in this article.

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Ilex vomitoria' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/ilex/ilex-vomitoria/). Accessed 2024-03-29.

An evergreen shrub, sometimes a small tree, 15 to 20 ft high; young shoots rigid, spreading, covered with a minute down. Leaves glabrous, glossy dark green, narrowly oval or inclined to ovate, tapered at the base, bluntish at the apex, the margin shallowly and remotely toothed, 12 to 112 in. long, 14 to 34 in. wide; stalk 112 to 18 in. long, downy like the young wood. Flowers produced in axillary clusters on the year-old wood, the males numerous and on stalks 18 in. long; females solitary or in pairs. Fruits scarlet, round, 316 in. in diameter.

Native of the south-eastern United States; introduced before 1700. A neat evergreen shrub something like a phillyrea in appearance, but incapable of withstanding our hardest winters.

The epithet vomitoria refers to the use to which the leaves were put by the Indians. At certain times of the year they would forgather on the coast where the holly was abundant and, having made an infusion of the leaves, ‘they begin drinking large drafts, which in a very short time vomit them severely; thus they continue drinking and vomiting, for the space of two or three days, until they have sufficiently cleansed themselves; then they gather every one a bundle of the shrub to carry away with them, and retire to their habitations’ (Miller, Gard. Diet. (1768), under Cassine paragua).