Winterberry (Ilex verticillata) A Favorite Native Landscape Plant

Although this winterberry (Ilex verticillata) has only a few
berries remaining, the winterberry is widely used in
wreaths and decorative holiday arrangements for its
winter color.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2011. Do not copy.

Driving along the back roads of New Hampshire in the fall after the leaves have dropped, it is not unusual to see the otherwise bare branches of the winterberry (Ilex verticillata) bedecked with bright red berries. In fact, you'll often see cars stopped near these wild, native shrubs clipping off the branches with the festively colored berries to weave them into homemade wreathes or to simply arrange them in vase as a holiday decoration. Winterberries are actually a species of holly plants as are all members of the Ilex genus.

I did not think that there was any winterberry growing on my property, but while taking a walk through the woods yesterday, I noticed a few dozen red berries on a thin tree-like plant that stood about 6 feet high. Winterberry! As you can see from some of the pictures on this page, it was growing in what I might call a vernal pool, if it were spring. Since it is December, however, I'll call it a wet, low-lying area flooded by recent rains and snow-melt located in the forest about twenty feet away from the edge of a stream bed.

Two small winterberry shoots can be seen to the right of
the larger main stem emerging from runner roots that
travel underground.
Photo by Brad Sylvester. Copyright 2011. Do not copy.

As you can also see from the picture on the right, the forest floor there is covered in this year's fallen leaves and pine needles. The decay of leaves and evergreen needles tends to make soil acidic, which is actually preferred by the winterberry. It also prefers very moist soil such as that found along roadside ditches, river banks, lake shores, and wet, low-lying areas in the middle of the forest.

Winterberry is shade tolerant and will grow in areas of only partial sun, such as the middle of a forest where I found this one. It will grow, much fuller and bear more fruit if it is placed in full sun since it will be able to harvest more energy from the sun which it uses to grow, flower, and fruit.

Actually, though, not all winterberry plants fruit. The plant has both male and female sexes and it is only the female plants that will produce the bright red berries. In order to do that, however, they need to be pollinated by a male winterberry plant. If you have one on your property that does not flower, then it is either a male plant, or a female plant without any male winterberry plants nearby.

Aside from the berries, which grow off the sides of young branches as shown in the pictures, the bark is a useful identification marker in the winter as well. The trunk and branches have horizontal lenticels, much like a birch tree, that break up the smooth bark. A lenticel, as we are reminded by this Cornell University publication,  is an area that allows the  plant's inner bark to "breathe," by providing permeable openings in the bark of the winterberry, which would otherwise not allow gas exchange.

In the spring, the winterberry has tiny, yellow-green flowers, which will become green berries on the female plant if pollinated. The green berries ripen around late October, turning a vibrant red. The red berries will stay on the branches through most or all of the winter, providing eye-candy for humans and a more nutritious treat for many wild animals. The USDA says as many as 48 species of birds eat the fruit of the winterberry plant as do white-tailed deer, moose, snowshoe rabbits and cottontail rabbits, as long as the latter two can reach the berries, often aided in their reach by walking atop deep snow. Winterberry plants can reach as high as 8-15 feet in height.

Propagating Winterberries

Winterberries, like many wild plants, have redundant systems of reproduction. They have fruits that contain seeds, of course, but they also send out runners, roots that travel underground and surface periodically with a new plant, like lilacs and many other shrubs. With human intervention, cuttings can be taken and rooted to make new plants as well.

Seed Propagation of the Winterberry Plant

Winterberry fruit (Ilex verticillata) and two seeds
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011. Do not copy.

Of the three methods only the seeds produce new plants which contain a mix of the genetic material between the pollinating male plant and the fruit-producing female plant. Each berry contains 3-5 seeds each with a hard outer shell. That shell protects the seed as it travels through the digestive system of birds or other animals that eat the berries. The bright red fruit that is easy for birds to find helps ensure that the seeds are widely dispersed. Presumably, if the bird that found the berries prefers the same habitat in which it found the winterberry plant, then it will deposit the seeds, or most of them, in the plant's favored habitat although that may be far away from the parent plants.

Winterberry seeds do need to be cold-conditioned before they will germinate effectively. That means either leaving them outside and collecting them in the spring to be planted, or collecting them in the fall and winter from the ripe red berries and placing them in the refrigerator (not the freezer) for a period of 45 days or more before planting them as you would any other seed. Plants grown from seed may turn out to be either male or female plants, there's no way for the average gardener to choose, or even tell which it is until the plant is several years old and becomes sexually mature.

• Read more about cold conditioning seeds here

Winterberry Propagation by Runner Shoots and Cuttings

The runner shoots can be dug up after the leaves have dropped off the winterberry plant and it has gone dormant for the winter. The third method of propagating winterberries is to root cuttings. This is done in the spring (May-June) when the plant is primed and in growth mode. Using either of these propagation methods will result in new plants that are exact genetic copies of the plant from which they were taken. That means they will even be the same sex so plan accordingly and remember that you'll need at least one male, pollinating plant near the female plants if you want them to produce berries.

I'll write up and link some complete guides to various types of propagation, as well as handling and transplanting tips and link from each appropriate plant on this blog soon. --Follow this blog now with either Networked Blogs or Google Friend Connect (found in the margins of this page) if you don't want to miss it.--

In the spring, I'll definitely take some cuttings from this winterberry plant and add a few new plants to the more landscaped part of my yard along the stream bed in the back yard. Because winterberry is a native plant to the area and will be planted in the type of soil and conditions that it prefers. It is an eco-friendly choice for New Hampshire home-owners, requiring neither extra watering nor special pesticides or fertilizers to thrive here.

First Fungus - Cleft-foot Amanita (amanita brunnescens)

Cleft-foot Amanita in a mixed deciduous-
coniferous wood with many oak trees.
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011
Do not copy.

I've always wanted to learn to identify mushrooms, particularly the edible ones, but have never gotten around to it. Hopefully, the effort of learning how to identify every species of plant (which does include fungi such as mushrooms) that lives in my yard will help get me there. I have about four acres of forest in my yard, which is home to a wide variety of mushrooms and other fungi, so if I can figure out all of the ones that grow here, I should have a good start of familiar species and I should know most of the key traits to look for in order to properly identify most species.

To start with, I photographed a mushroom in various states of growth as there were several of the same species present. I lifted one out of the ground to look at the base. I photographed the stalk and the underside of the cap. I noted the type of ground and vegetation around it. I thought I had all the bases covered. I was wrong.

For many species of mushrooms, it may be necessary to 1) bruise the mushroom stalk to see if the bruise discolors and if so what color it turns. 2) slice the gills and see if they exude a latex and, if they do, what color it is, and if it changes color after exposure to air. 3) take a spore print and see the color of the spores. A microscopic examination of the spores can also provide an identification key, although that would rarely, if ever, be needed.

In this case, however, I got lucky and believe I have a good identification using the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms. The mushroom specimen pictured here appears to be the cleft-foot amanita (Amanita brunnescens). A species listed as "possibly poisonous," but closely related (and similar in appearance) to some very seriously poisonous Amanita mushrooms. How did I get to that conclusion? Let's go through the steps.

The vertical split is clearly visible in this specimen of
Cleft-foot Amanita.
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011.

First, the general shape of the mushroom with the large, bulbous base, the cap shape, the scales on the top of the cap and the ring around the stalk strongly suggest an amanita according to the shape key in the Audubon Guide. In fact, the shape narrows it down to nine varieties of amanita. When I notice that one of these is called the cleft-foot amanita. I recall that I noticed a distinct  vertical split or cleft in the base (or foot) of each mushroom specimen that I examined. It even shows in some of the photos. Bingo. That's my prime candidate.

Then we run down the other field marks or identification keys for this species. Dark brown to whitish at the margin, check. Patches left over from the universal veil on the top of the cap, check. A collapsing pendant ring (looks like a skirt of skin-like tissue) around the mid or upper stalk, check. Large, bulbous base with an abrupt start from the stalk, check. Gills are free (meaning that the gills are not attached to the central stalk), check. The base has a distinct vertical cleft or split, check. Season: July- October, check. Grows on dry ground among deciduous trees, especially oak, check. Flesh is white, check. Bruises to reddish-brown, unknown (although there is some brownish discoloration where the stalk has been subject to normal wear). Spore print is white, unknown.

The gills and collapsed pendant ring of the cleft-foot amanita
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011

Furthermore the field guide provides several color plates which match my photos very closely and lists potential look-alike varieties (some of which are fatally poisonous) which I ruled out one by one by going through their identification guides. I feel quite confident in this identification. The spore print would help me pin it down to the genus Amanita, but I'm very confident at the genus level.

The bulbous base of the Cleft-foot Amanita begins abruptly
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2011

The cleft-foot amanita while listed as "possibly poisonous" belongs to the same Family and genus as the infamous Death cap mushroom, the deadly Destroying Angel mushroom, the hallucination and coma inducing Panther (a very near look-alike, rarely found in the east) and Fly Agaric mushrooms. Therefore, of course, it should not be eaten under any circumstances.

Wintergreen (gaultheria procumbens)

Wintergreen or eastern teaberry (Gaultheria procumbens)
Photo by Brad Sylvester, copyright 2010, all rights reserved

I'm going to start off the list of plants that grow in my yard with one that was a very pleasant surprise when I moved here. Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens), sometimes called Eastern Teaberry, is one of the edible native plants that lives in the woods in my yard. It is very plentiful, growing in the shade of the forest canopy. Wintergreen is both edible and potentially deadly poisonous, so please read the information contained in the linked article. It happens to be one of the few plants about which I've already written for Examiner.com so I'm going to refer you to the link below for what I wrote there which includes medicinal properties and poison warnings.

• Read more about Wintergreen

Additionally, I will tell you that this spring, 2011, seemed to be a very good year for new wintergreen plants. The reddish young leaves of new plants seemed to be springing up everywhere.

To date, I haven't found any evidence of the plant being eaten by anything (other than myself). It seems to be pretty well left alone by insects and other herbivores. It grows in normal to moist soil conditions in the shade or very dappled sunlight. It gets it's name, as you might guess, because it stays green and keeps its leaves all year, through even the coldest of New England winters. Given the low light environment in which it lives, it must find it more economical of energy and nutrients to preserve its leaves through winter than to try to grow new ones every spring. Keeping the leaves through winter, of course, also gives wintergreen an advantage in the spring time, it can take advantage of the bare canopies overhead while the sun's indirect rays are still relatively weak in the early part of the year.

I recall that in grade school many years ago in southern Vermont, when we learned how to make little terrariums, wintergreen was one of the plants we sought. It needs little light, can live in humid and moist environment, was very slow growing, and of course, doesn't drop its leaves and look dead in the winter. As a bonus, depending upon the plant you found, it might also have a bright red berry to give the terrarium a little bit of color.

Quick Facts about Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens)

Edible: Yes, in small quantities. Can be fermented to make a tea.
Life cycle: Perennial, evergreen
Propagation: Spreading underground rhizomes, less often by seeds contained in berry
Other uses: Essential oil, medicinal uses (See linked article above for details)
Range: Eastern North America from the Gulf of Mexico and north through out eastern Canada (from the USDA website)
Native or introduced: Native, undomesticated
Poisonous: Yes, in quantity. Wintergreen essential oil has been known to cause fatalities through both ingestion and excessive topical use.