Tales From the Piney Naturalist

Winterberry One of the most cheerful sites in a bleak winter landscape is to see the Winterberry, heavily berried with its bright orange red fruit. It stands out against the gleaming white snow drifts like a beacon of swamp fire in an Arctic setting, and when the white mantle of snow lays its blanket of death over our favorite fields and forests, it's bright red berries are an easy source of food for many of our native birds. The somber gray Mockingbird feeds heavily on them and the Cheery Cardinals flip through the frosty branches like red hot sparks as they feed on the life-sustaining fruit. This large shrub is actually a Holly and its botanical name is Ilex Verticillata, the name Ilex of course covering all of the Holly family. The Holly is a large family, and when most people think of Holly, they think of the Christmas card Holly known to the nurseryman as American Holly and to the botanist as Ilex Opaca. This Holly is evergreen and holds its leaves all through the winter. However, the shrub we are talking about is deciduous, which simply means it loses its leaves when the hard frosts of October descend on the low-lying meadows. Its berries hang tight in all their brilliant glory until midwinter and this habit of course is what this article is all about and what gives this plant its value as an ornamental. Its leaves are of medium size and are usually a light shade of green. They are not prickly like our Christmas holly, but with proper pruning and a heavy application of nitrogen, it can be made to turn dark green and make a very satisfactory background shrub. The bark is shiny black, and our native forefathers nicknamed it Black Alder. This name is quite appropriate as it closely resembles the tag holders so familiar to the back cast of the dry fly trout fisherman. It is commonly used by landscape men, especially for naturalistic plantings in low areas and is extensively grown by most wholesale nurseries. If you have a wet spot in your landscape plan, plant a group of three Winterberry. They will serve as a banquet table for your feathered friends and give your place an aura of Christmas cheer during the holidays. This plant is a familiar site to the field gunner in most of our Eastern states, and I recently ran into one in central Pennsylvania under rather happy circumstances: Walt Wilson, a Nimrod friend of mine and myself were on our annual buck hunting expedition to the Quaker state. We had hunted all of the first day and “Zilch.” However on the second day we jumped a nice six point buck out of a typical eastern swamp. It was covered with high hammocks, here and there a clump of tag holders and the tall remains of iron weed, Joe Pye Weed and sedges. The shooting was tough but we cut loose about 200 yards. I couldn't seem to connect but Walt laid his old 30-06 Springfield on top of a convenient fence post and put two 180 grain brass jackets right where it meant a haunch of venison to grace the Christmas dining table. We walked up to the downed buck and found he had fallen just a short distance from a beautiful seven foot Winterberry. We cut short Sprigs of the brilliant red berries, stuck them in our hats, took a swig out of the “old happy bottle” (thermos of coffee which is the only drink any hunter should take using any weapon larger than a slingshot), checked the time of the kill (10:10 a.m.), shook hands and exalted in the thrill that comes only at the end of a hard but successful buck hunt.