Height: 25’
Spread: 15+
Shape: Thicket forming when planted as a group.  As an individual, it is umbrella shaped
Foliage: Waxy, bright evergreen
Fall Color: Evergreen, showy red fruit
Hardiness: 5-9

Comments: ‘Shadows’ is dense and upright, a heavy berry producing female cultivar of Ilex vomitoria.  It will attain 20’ height and 20’+ spread in ideal full sun areas.  Can be trained (by pruning) to narrow width, increase height or vice versa.  Fruits are eaten by Cedar waxwings and songbirds.  Yaupon fruit and seed are eaten by a variety of animals such as wild turkey, raccoon, squirrel, and wild hog.  Yaupon leaves are a high choice browse of white-tailed deer.  Leaf: Alternate, simple, evergreen, margin with rounded teeth, ½ to 1 ½ inch long, shiny dark green above, pale below.  Flower: Dioecious, small greenish white, males numerous and in clusters, female solitary or in small clusters, appear in late spring.  Fruit: Berry-like drupe, dark orange to red, ¼ to 1/3 inch in diameter, ripen in late summer, persistent and usually numerous.  Twig: Slender, stiff, initially purplish brown, velvety, but turning light gray and glabrous, buds very small and dark.  Bark: Thin, smooth and light gray, may be come a bit scaly.  Form: Evergreen shrub forming thickets with numerous stems and branches