The Outer Cape is the last stop on the train for Ilex opaca, the American holly, a southern tree whose range snakes up the mid-Atlantic and New England coasts before terminating in Massachusetts. This is not the same holly one sings about while wassailing — that’s the English holly, Ilex aquifolia, a similar-looking Old World species that’s too fussy to be grown here. The landscapes of our inland neighbors might still be deprived of spine-and-berry hollies altogether if it hadn’t been for Kathleen Meserve, an amateur grower who, in the 1950s, crossed the English holly tree with a cold-hardy bush from the mountains of Japan to create a hybrid shrub tough enough to handle yards from Burlington to Bangor.
The pictured I. opaca lives deep in the woods next to Marconi Beach in Wellfleet and features the sort of thin density one expects of a plant growing in the shade. In cultivation, the American holly is robust in both leaf and fruit and can grow several stories in height to leave those non-native hybrids in the dust. For a healthy ornamental tree, plant a female specimen in a well-drained spot that’s protected from harsh wind. The plentiful berries are certain to bring a train of feathered carolers.
