Ilex decidua 'Finch's Golden'

Possumhaw is the deciduous holly of southern bottomlands, a shrub or small tree that spends the growing season looking like nothing in particular and then earns the whole year in December. The leaves drop, and what is left is a fine gray branch structure loaded with fruit that holds on bare wood through the winter. On the ordinary wild plant that fruit is red. Ilex decidua 'Finch's Golden' carries bright yellow fruit instead, a selection made by Bill Finch of Mobile, Alabama, and the difference against a gray winter sky is not subtle.

The species is native to bottomlands and moister upland sites across the southeastern United States, and one practical virtue sets possumhaw apart from the better-known winterberry: this holly is far better adapted to high-pH soils than Ilex verticillata, which sulks and yellows on limey ground. The name possumhaw comes from the wildlife that works the fruit over, and haw is the old word for a hedge fruit, the same haw as in hawthorn. The epithet decidua simply records the unholly-like habit of dropping every leaf.

Hollies are dioecious, male and female flowers on separate plants, and this matters commercially rather than as a curiosity. Small white flowers open in spring, and only a female plant will fruit, and only then if a male is within range of the bees. 'Finch's Golden' is a female. A male Ilex decidua planted nearby is the reliable answer; a male Ilex opaca will usually do the job, though the bloom times are a less certain match. Anyone buying this plant for the winter fruit should plan for a pollinator rather than hope for one. The berries are mildly toxic to people and are best left to the mockingbirds, cedar waxwings and robins that strip them by late winter.

Site 'Finch's Golden' where the winter silhouette will be seen from the house, against evergreens or a dark wall that will throw the yellow fruit forward, and reckon on twelve to fifteen feet in time. The plant takes full sun to part shade and a wide range of soils, wet or dry, acid or alkaline, which is a rare tolerance in a holly and makes possumhaw useful where little else fruits well. Limb the plant up as a small multi-stemmed tree to show the pale gray bark, or leave the shrub full to the ground as a screen. Hardy through USDA zones 5 to 9.