Yaupon

Yaupon--A Tree for Holiday Color

 Winter holidays are here with red and green decorations everywhere. These traditional colors are seasonally and spiritually-based, primarily from festivals in Europe’s dark and cold midwinter. Evergreen plants have been used for millennia as reminders that winter won’t last forever. Later Christian traditions associate red with the blood of Christ. Red has become our modern Santa’s clothing color of choice.

 So what landscape trees do we have with these colors? There are several but my favorite is the Yaupon (Ilex vomitoria). This tough native features pale white to gray bark and small, grey-green, leathery leaves, and produces beautiful, translucent, red berries in late summer and fall.

 Gardener-friendly Yaupons thrive in full or part sun and may reach 20-25 feet. They grow in almost any soil type, enjoy sun or shade, have very high heat and salt tolerance, and while drought tolerant can also survive temporary poor drainage. They have no serious pest or disease problems. Fruit and leaves are not a litter problem. What’s not to like?

 A Yaupon can provide a tight hedge or become a small tree with single or multiple trunks and interestingly-contorted branches. It can also be used for topiaries, espaliers, or screens. It grows well in sidewalk cutouts and sites with limited exposed soil. Yaupon likes to form thickets, so gardeners must prune shoots each year to maintain a single plant. It requires little additional pruning other than any desired shaping. It is better to obtain a dwarf variety for low shrubbery rather than over-pruning a larger one.

 Wildlife love this tree for food and nesting habitat. Berries form in dense clusters throughout the plant and remain attached through winter and into spring making them an important winter food source for a variety of bird species. Bees enjoy the tiny spring flowers for weeks.

 Native Americans used the plant extensively. Wood made excellent arrows, and the roasted leaves and shoots made a dark, tea like drink containing caffeine and the antioxidant theobromine. The tea was reported to induce vomiting for ceremonies to purify the body (hence the name vomitoria). However, the emetic properties of the leaves may be more legend than fact as the tea--related to South American Yerba Mate--is now supplied commercially by American companies as the only caffeinated plant native to North America.

 Flowers appear on male and female plants but berries are produced only on females. To assure a female seek one with berries already it, or one which was propagated from female cuttings. Yaupons sprout readily from the roots forming clumps of upright shoots beneath the canopy so you may be able to “rustle” one from a friend.

 Yaupons are everywhere in Galveston. City Hall has a “weeping” cultivar on the corner. They are a popular NeighborWoods selection for each spring’s right-of-way plantings. The plants are readily available from the nursery industry, so if you want a small tough tree that will delight you in all seasons, plant a Yaupon, our “Texas Holly”.

 Hurricane Ike caused the loss of 40,000 trees on Galveston Island. The Galveston Island Tree Conservancy was formed to address that loss and e has replaced over 14,000 through grant-funded plantings and giveaways, with more planned. “Tree Stories” is an ongoing series of articles intended to bring attention to outstanding Island trees, tree care, and tree issues.  If you have or know of a special tree on Galveston Island that should be highlighted, please email treesforgalveston@yahoo.com. Margaret Canavan is a Galveston resident, a Galveston County Master Gardener, and a member of the Conservancy Board.