Lots of Berries

  While out and about the hillside today, I found more yaupon trees with their show-stopping displays of red berries than ever before.  It seems that birds munching the berries are inadvertently planting the seeds all over the hill!  Not that I mind, since I find the bright red berries rather attractive.   I am quite sure that given a few more weeks, nary a crimson berry shall be found.  The cedar waxwings will fly to the area and make quick work of my lovely berries!  Those birds can strip a tree in a matter of minutes!

  Holly has always been synonymous with Christmas and the entire holiday season.  The bright red berries and dark green leaves seem to lend themselves to the season and all its trappings.  We are most accustomed to seeing the American Holly or English Holly among the decorations but it is not to far-fetched to find Yaupon Holly adorning wreathes or garlands especially down south.  In the Deep South, yaupons grow rampantly in woods, on the sides of roads and in any fence lines that are not regularly cleared. Here on the Bayou, the small shrubs even grow right in the marshy areas.   Since all holly trees are dioecious, not all trees bear berries.  Yaupon trees are the same.  Only the female trees will be highly decorated come late fall.  The male trees simply stay green.  It is that bit of information that sparked a memory from long ago.

    A sweet little lady told me a tale about using yaupon to decorate a home for the holidays.  Ms. Dot related that if male yaupon branches were entwined about a wreath for the doorway, the coming year would find the man of the house making all major decisions.   He would "rule the roost".   If female yaupon was used because of the pretty berries, the wife would have the ruling hand for the coming year.  She always told me to use lots of berries!  It is funny how something so common as the use of a pretty branch can have a sneaky legend attached!  I wonder just how many husbands would ban holly berries of any kind from the house if this legend were proven to be true!    Personally, I love to leave the yaupon berries on the tree.  Having the cedar waxwings visit is enough incentive for me to let the berries stay where they grew.