Invasive Brush Plants – Part 2 – Yaupon Holly

Ilex vomitoria is an apt name for yaupon. Guess what happens if you eat the red berries of the yaupon? That’s right, you vomit! It does not take a PhD in botony to figure out that a plant with the Latin name for vomit is probably not fit to eat. According the National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees, yaupon leaves contain high caffeine content and Native Americans used to brew them with the berries into a tea to induce vomiting. The “black drink” as it was called reportedly was also a laxative. According to Audubon, native tribes from the interior of hte US traveled to the coast each year to participate in a cleansing ritual with yaupon black drink. We are certainly not making black drink or brewing yaupon tea at Dogwood Ranch. If there was a real commercial market for yaupon tea, we would be rich! We will stick to getting our morning caffeine from coffee.

In small numbers, yaupon can be beneficial to wildlife as it provides food for deer and birds. We see lots of little birds nest in the yaupon and when vines grow into and over the yaupon, it creates a thicket that birds seem to like. The brush also provides cover for other small wildlife. However, solid choking invasive stands of yaupon are harmful to native’s grasses, forbs and other wildlife food sources. Under a thick stand of yaupon, there is little to no grass. Besides, the thickets that crowed around oaks and other large trees destroy the larger trees majestic beauty and take water and resources from them.

The problem with yaupon eradication, or even just attempting to control it and establish peaceful co-existence with it, is that simply cutting it down will not do the trick. Once cut, the yaupon will sprout back from the root and sometimes sprout directly from the cut surface. To kill it completely, the roots must either but removed from the ground or otherwise killed. We’ve see folks clear out yaupon by pulling a bush hog behind a tractor but in a few years, the area will be just as dense with yaupon so little was accomplished. Besides, it’s difficult to be selective in what is cut down with bush hog so along will yaupon, small beneficial plants that may not grow back are destroyed.

Yaupon eradication is such a problem that numerous papers have been written on the subject. One master’s thesis submission by Stephanie Renee Dupree of Texas Tech University compared various eradication methods. The link to her paper is  http://etd.lib.ttu.edu/theses/available/etd-07012008-31295019526226/unrestricted/31295019526226.pdf

Also see Managing Yaupon with Fire and Herbicide in the Texas Post Oak Savannah published by the USDA Agricultural Research Service http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1211&context=usdaarsfacpub

and the Texas Parks and Wildlife publication
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_br_w7000_0010p_color.pdf

Digging up yaupon is not an option on Dogwood Ranch because is there is just too much of it. Instead, we have to kill the roots in place. We use three methods, unfortunately all very labor intensive, depending on the situation: 1. Cut and paint stump; 2. Clear and spray; 3. Basal trunk paint. I will describe each method in detail.

Here is a before and after shot of an early yaupon brush clearing around an oak tree.

Before

After