Texas Gardening: Aggressive Groundcover ID, 0 by jessileigh

jessileigh wrote:
This is a spreading, low, ground cover plant with holly-like leaves. The stems are tough and woody, upright, and do not branch. The leaves are alternate on the stems. Leaf color ranges from light to dark green. It's evergreen. Leaves are tough and a bit leathery. We've never seen any flower, fruit, or berry of any kind, just leaves. Each stem ranges from about 6" to 12" tall, occasionally to 18", rarely taller than that. It spreads by a tangle of underground runners/roots. It is somewhat aggressive and spreading. It is growing in shade under live oaks. It used to be in a St Augustine lawn, and happily survived regular and repeated mowing. That area is now garden and this "ground holly" is a pest. It's not inherently a bad plant, it is just not what we want where it's growing. It is proving VERY difficult to remove.

Manual weeding has little effect (breaking off stems, leaving the runners). Judicious and repeated applications of herbicide (Roundup) cause the leaves to die, but not the plant which continues to sprout vigorously. Current attempt is to spread a tarp over a section for the winter and see if it dies miserably in the darkness. Does anyone know what this plant is, or have any advice for eradicating it? We're thinking of this as the holly-version of Bermuda Grass.