Plant

Common winterberry

Ilex verticillata

Also known as: winterberry holly, black alder

A native deciduous holly — unusual among hollies for dropping its leaves in fall. Distinctive bright red berries persist on bare branches through winter, providing both critical winter wildlife food and one of the most-recognizable native winter ornamental displays. Common at Staten Island's wetland edges and moist forest margins. Dioecious — male and female plants required for berry production.

Scientific

Ilex verticillata is a 6–15 ft deciduous holly native to eastern North America. Unusual among hollies — most are evergreen; I. verticillata drops its leaves in fall, leaving bright red berries on bare branches. Berries persist through winter and into early spring.

Dioecious — male and female on separate plants. Female plants need a male within ~50 ft for pollination and berry production. This complicates ornamental plantings.

Wildlife value is high: berries are eaten by robins, cedar waxwings, mockingbirds, hermit thrushes, and other fruit-eating species when other food is scarce. Fruit persists through cold weather (low palatability when fresh; cold cycles improve it).

On Staten Island

Common at the borough’s wetland edges and moist forest margins. Greenbelt wet pockets, [[mount-loretto-unique-area|Mount Loretto]] pond margins, [[conference-house-park|Conference House Park]] wetland edges all support the species. Most-conspicuous in late fall and winter when leafless red-berry display is at peak.

Sources

USDA NRCS Plants Database: common winterberry
Northeastern wetland-shrub references

Rooted in life.

What links here, and how

Inbound connections from across the wiki, grouped by lens and by relationship. These appear automatically — every entity page declares what it links to, and that data populates here on the targets.

Scientific

cousin of

Holly auto-linked from body mention

1 inbound link · 3 outbound

Scientific

On Staten Island

See also

Sources

What links here, and how