This shrub is growing in dry shady areas in a park near my house. I think it's Ilex crenata, rather than a native look-alike, but I'd like to confirm it. Could it be anything else?
BTW, I tried to put these photos in order, but the gremlins in the computer were not inclined to cooperate.
I think you are correct with Ilex crenata - a female plant.
I see crenate margined leaves, alternately arranged, with blue/black fruit.
Thanks,VV. I'm beginning to feel like I live in Japan.
kind of sad isn't it?
It is sad. The native plants might have a chance of competing with the NNIS if the deer didn't eat them. When I went on a walk with the VA native plant society, someone pointed out some tiny euonymus americanus that will never get more than a few inches high. I've started to assume that a plant is non-native if the deer aren't browsing it.
Around here strawberry bush (euonymus americanus) is as common as pig tracks. I regularly have to remove 2' -3' plants from flower beds along woody edges. Deer are also common here; but they have plenty of browse in the form of cultivated crops so they pretty much leave me alone.
Interesting. The area in which I saw the small plants did not have much by way of alternatives for the deer to eat, whereas the deer in our neighborhood have tasty plants that people try to grow in our yards. So, maybe it would be possible to get them to grow in the woods near my house, especially if grow them where they are protected by a raspberry patch.
Around here strawberry bush (euonymus americanus) is as common as pig tracks..
Bob, you're talking about wild pig/hog tracks, right? If you have those around you, there probably are coyotes killing off the deer, too. Around here, only two things kill deer: cars, and the occasional deer cull.
Well now, for all you city folks, "Common as pig tracks" is an old timey country expression from the era when just about everybody who had even a small piece of land kept pigs for family consumption and some market sales to bring in a little much needed money. Pig tracks really were common!
And that ranks right in there with "rare as hen's teeth."
Yep, and describing folks who aren't fancy dressers and don't have airs about them, "Plain as an old shoe"; and no, its not an insult.
And that ranks right in there with "rare as hen's teeth."
Why in the world did they want to produce hens with teeth? Was it just to find out whether it was possible?
Chickens with teeth!? That's nightmare material.
I hope the person who did that to the poor chicken then woke up the next day with a tail.
ha ha ha Very funny!
On the other hand...hens with teeth no longer have to eat granite/grit to macerate their food.
So true!!
To go back to Bob's "common as pig tracks" saying, it might become more than an expression soon. There's a lot on the Internet about it, like http://www.trentonian.com/living-things/20131125/the-most-invasive-animals-in-the-us-are-pigs.
I think I'd better stop complaining about deer !
