Hello Gardeners, I’m Amanda McNulty with Clemson Extension and Making It Grow. One of our native plants, Yaupon holly, Ilex vomitoria, grows abundantly in the lower half of South Carolina. It is a valuable plant for wildlife and its ability to grow in a wide range of soils and exposures makes it useful for reclamation and stabilization projects. One place it is not welcome, however, is in managed pine plantations.
Its tolerance for soils low in fertility allow it to compete with the pine seedlings, and its suckering habit can create undesirable understory thickets. Fortunately, it is intolerant of fire so prescribed burns will prevent it from developing into a dangerous fuel load. It grows in the southern United States from Virginia to Texas. The SC Plant Atlas of the AC Moore Herbarium lists cassina holly as its own species and shows a much smaller distribution area but many sources consider it to be the same as yaupon.
