''Ilex cassine'' is a holly native to the southeastern coast of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

, in the United States from Virginia to southeast Texas, in Mexico in Veracruz, and in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

on the Bahamas, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. It is commonly known as dahoon holly or ''cassena'', the latter derived from the Timucua name for '' I. vomitoria''. It is a large

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

or small tree growing to 10–13 m tall. The

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

are evergreen, 6–15 cm long and 2–4 cm broad, glossy dark green, entire or with a few small spines near the apex of the leaf. The flowers are white, with a four-lobed corolla. The fruit is a red

drupe In botany, a drupe (or stone fruit) is an indehiscent fruit in which an outer fleshy part (exocarp, or skin, and mesocarp, or flesh) surrounds a single shell (the ''pit'', ''stone'', or '' pyrena'') of hardened endocarp with a seed (''kernel'') ...

, 5–6 mm in diameter, containing four seeds.Florida Department of Environmental Protection
Florida's Hollies
Huxley, A., ed. (1992). ''New RHS Dictionary of Gardening''. Macmillan . As with other hollies, it is

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

with separate male and female plants. Only the females have berries, and a male pollenizer must be within range for

bee Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyly, monophyletic lineage within the ...

s to pollinate them.

Varieties

There are three varieties: *''Ilex cassine'' var. ''cassine'' (United States, Caribbean) *''Ilex cassine'' var. ''angustifolia'' Aiton. (United States) *''Ilex cassine'' var. ''mexicana'' (Turcz.) Loes. (Mexico) '' Ilex × attenuata'' is a naturally occurring hybrid of ''Ilex cassine'' and '' Ilex opaca''.

Cultivation

''Ilex cassine'' is grown in warmer climates as an ornamental plant for the attractive bright red berries set against the glossy green leaves. It is known to grow to 30 feet tall. Its original range was close to the coast, but the range has been extended by planting.

Stimulant

''Ilex cassine'' leaves, like those of its sister species ''I. vomitoria'', contain measurable amounts of the stimulants caffeine and theobromine. The leaves of both species may have been used in the Native American ''cassena'' (the

Black drink Black drink is a name for several kinds of ritual beverages brewed by Native Americans in the Southeastern United States. Traditional ceremonial people of the Yuchi, Caddo, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee and some other Indigenous peop ...

), and there has been confusion in the literature as to which species was commonly used to brew the drink, but ''I. vomitoria'' provides more caffeine and was probably the usual ingredient in cassena. An analysis of the levels of methylxanthines in the leaves used in various stimulant drinks found that ''I. cassine'' leaves have about 20% (by dry weight) of the amount of caffeine found in ''I. vomitoria'', 8% of that in ''

Coffea arabica ''Coffea arabica'' (), also known as the Arabic coffee, is a species of flowering plant in the coffee and madder family Rubiaceae. It is believed to be the first species of coffee to have been cultivated and is currently the dominant cultivar, r ...

'', and about 3% of the caffeine in ''

Camellia sinensis ''Camellia sinensis'' is a species of evergreen shrub or small tree in the flowering plant family Theaceae. Its leaves and leaf buds are used to produce the popular beverage, tea. Common names include tea plant, tea shrub, and tea tree (not to ...

'' Kunze. ''I. cassine'' has twice as much theobromine as ''I. vomitoria'' and 20% of the level in ''C. sinensis'' Kunze (''C. arabica'' does not contain significant amounts of theobromine), but the stimulant effect of theobromine is just 10% of that of caffeine.

References

External links

* *
Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of North Carolina: Dahoon (''Ilex cassine'')
* {{Taxonbar, from=Q3141413 cassine Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Ornamental trees Trees of the Bahamas Trees of Cuba Trees of Puerto Rico Trees of the Southeastern United States Trees of the South-Central United States Trees of Veracruz Trees of the United States