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| ## inkberry {#inkberry .Title-Header}                                 |
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| *Ilex glabra* (L.) Gray                                               |
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| Plant Symbol = ILGL                                                   |
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Contributed by: USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center & the Biota of
North America Program

### ![](media/image2.jpeg){width="2.5972222222222223in" height="3.9in"}

### Alternate common names 

Gallberry, bitter gallberry, winterberry, Canadian winterberry,
evergreen winterberry, Appalachian tea

### Uses

Inkberry leaves are browsed by marsh rabbit and white tailed-deer, the
fruits are important food for raccoon, coyote, and opossum when other
sources are scarce. The fruit is also eaten by at least 15 species of
birds, including bobwhite quail and wild turkey. Inkberry provides cover
for white-tailed deer, small rodents, and several species of birds.
Nectar of the flowers is an important source for honey production.

Inkberry is coming to be recommended and used for ornament as one of the
few evergreen shrubs that

thrives in continually moist to wet sites and adapts to a wide range of
light availability. It provides a larger and faster growing alternative
to boxwood hybrids, although it tends to be leggier, prone to stem
breakage, and the rhizomatous plants tend to form large, expanding
colonies. Numerous cultivars of inkberry have been selected and are
commercially available. Compared to the wild types, these generally have
a more compact, taller, and/or broader habit, smaller and darker leaves,
greater cold hardiness, and/or more abundant fruit production.
Selections are sometimes restricted to one or the other sex, and because
the staminate and pistillate flowers are on different plants, both sexes
must be present for fruit production.

Inkberry can be used for erosion control, watershed protection, and
phosphate mine reclamation. It is included in listings of potential new
crops for Australia as a source of beverage \-- presumably desirable for
its caffeine.

The fruit and leaves of various species of holly, presumably including
inkberry, contain a mixture of the caffeine-like alkaloid theobromine,
caffeine itself, and glycosides. The Indians of the southeastern US made
a caffeinated tea from the leaves of yaupon holly (*Ilex vomitoria*).
Mate, or Paraguay tea, is made from the leaves of *Ilex paraguariensis*,
a holly tree indigenous to Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Mate
contains caffeine and a natural alkaloid called mateine, a mildly
stimulating relative of caffeine that tends not to produce side effects
such as nervousness or sleeplessness.

### Status

Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural
Resources for this plant's current status, such as, state noxious status
and wetland indicator values.

### Description

*General*: Holly family (Aquifoliaceae). Native, open evergreen shrubs,
commonly growing 1.5-2(-3) meters tall, with numerous sprouts from
thick, heavy, tuberous rhizomes, forming clusters and extensive, dense,
colonial thickets. Leaves are alternate, simple, entire or finely
toothed toward the tip, obovate to oblong or elliptic, 2.5-6.5 cm long,
evergreen, leathery, shiny and dark green above, lighter and dull
beneath. Flowers are either staminate (male) or pistillate (female),
borne on separate plants (the species dioecious); individual flowers
small, greenish-white and inconspicuous, the staminate 3-7 in
short-stalked clusters, the pistillate solitary in leaf axils. Fruit is
5-7 mm in diameter, nearly black, shiny; seeds (pyrenes) 5-7, smooth.
The common name is in reference to the dark blue-black fruits.

### Distribution

Inkberry occurs on the coastal plain of all US states along the Atlantic
and Gulf coasts, from Texas to Florida and northward to southern New
Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware, including more inland localities in
Pennsylvania and Arkansas. It continues northward sporadically and
uncommonly through New England into Nova Scotia, Canada.

### Establishment

*Adaptation*: Inkberry occurs primarily in pocosins, savannas, low
woods, and pine barrens and woodlands. It is a common understory species
of several fire-climax communities and an invader of frequently burned
areas. On well-drained sites of bayland and pocosin communities, it is a
dominant species. It is a common shrub in loblolly-shortleaf pine
communities, and with Wiregrass (*Aristida stricta*), it may be one of
the most conspicuous members of the understory of longleaf pine forests
in Florida. Inkberry is shade tolerant and grows in both sunny and
shaded habitats, on dry to wet sites, and on sandy to heavier peaty
soils. Flowering: March-June; fruiting: September-October, the fruits
persisting into the following spring.

*General*: Wildlife use of inkberry and the colonization of a variety of
habitats suggest that the seeds are animal dispersed. Germination may
not occur for 2-3 years, and seedling growth and early development are
slow. Seedlings apparently grow best in partial shade.

### Management

Fire top-kills inkberry but the species is adapted to a regime of
recurrent fires. Typically, the entire aerial portion of the stem dies,
although light fires may only kill the most recent growth. Re-growth
occurs by resprouting from root crowns and rhizomes, most vigorously in
the first post-fire year.

*Control*: Successive annual fires will effectively kill inkberry, when
management for cattle and commercial tree production call for complete
control. Summer fires are most damaging but frequent winter fires also
are effective for control.

### Cultivars, Improved and Selected Materials (and area of origin)

Contact your local Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil
Conservation Service) office for more information. Look in the phone
book under "United States Government." The Natural Resources
Conservation Service will be listed under the subheading "Department of
Agriculture." These plant materials are somewhat available from
commercial sources.

### References

Brizicky, G.K. 1964. *The genera of Celastrales in the southeastern
United States*. J. Arnold Arb. 45:206-234.

Coladonato, M. 1991. *Ilex glabra*. IN: W.C. Fischer (compiler). *The
fire effects information system* \[Data base\]. U.S. Dept. of Agric.,
Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station, Intermountain Fire
Sciences Laboratory, Missoula, Montana.
\<http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/\>

Dirr, M.A. 1986. *Ilex glabra*. American Nurseryman 164 (10):134 (with
illust.).

Dirr M.A. & J.H. Alexander 1991. *Ilex glabra, the inkberry holly*.
Arnoldia (Jamaica Plain) 51:16-22.

Florida Water Resource Management 1999. *Florida's hollies*. Florida
Dept. of Environmental Protection, Internet site:
\<http://www.dep.state.fl.us/water/slerp/wetlands/Ilex.htm\>

Perry, F.B. 1983. *Propagation of Ilex glabra and Rhododendron
nudiflorum from softwood cuttings*. Research report series - Alabama
Agricultural Experiment Station, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama.

Woods, F.W. 1956. *Ilex glabra forma leucocarpa: A white-fruited holly*.
Rhodora 58:25-26.

### Prepared By

*Guy Nesom*

Formerly BONAP, North Carolina Botanical Garden, University of North
Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

### Species Coordinator

#### *Gerald Guala*

USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Edited 05dec00 jsp;03feb03ahv; 060801 jsp

For more information about this and other plants, please contact your
local NRCS field office or Conservation District, and visit the PLANTS
Web site\<[http://plants.usda.gov](http://plants.usda.gov/)\> or the
Plant Materials Program Web site
\<[http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov](http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov/)\>

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