Red Berries Are Abundant on Park Plants During Holiday Season

By Ashley Lord

Interpretive Park Ranger

Canaveral National Seashore

Photo courtesy of the National Park Service

Bright red berries along the roadside are a common sight at this time of year. The splash of color could be either Yaupon Holly or Brazilian Pepper -- both plentiful around the Mosquito Lagoon and Apollo Beach. Yaupon Holly stands out with its simple evergreen leaves and bright-red winter berries, while Brazilian Pepper is easily distinguished by its compound leaves and dense, thicket-forming growth, as well as its small, red berries.

Yaupon Holly (Ilex vomitoria) is a native plant that grows throughout Florida, north to Virginia and south into Cuba. It is the only naturally caffeinated plant native to North America, making it the closest thing Indigenous peoples had to a modern-day Starbucks coffee. Yaupon has separate male and female plants and only the females produce the small, round, red berries seen during the fall and winter months. While the leaves are safe to use for tea, the berries are poisonous to humans.

For centuries, Indigenous groups -- including the Timucua, who inhabited this region from roughly 2,000 BCE to 1700 CE -- prepared the leaves as a ceremonial tea known as the “black drink.” It was consumed in large quantities before important events, such as council meetings or battle -- sometimes to the point of ritual vomiting, which gave the species its Latin name, vomitoria.

In contrast, Brazilian Pepper (Schinus terebinthifolia) is not native to Florida. Introduced from South America in the late 1890s and once marketed in the shrub industry as “Florida Holly,” it is now considered one of the state’s most aggressive invasive plants. Like yaupon, it has male and female plants, but Brazilian Pepper can produce seeds twice a year and birds readily spread them across the landscape. The plant forms dense, nearly indestructible thickets that crowd out native vegetation. National Park Rangers work continuously to try to prevent this fast-growing invasive plant from overtaking sensitive habitats.

If you would like to learn more about the plants of Canaveral National Seashore, take a guided walk available on Wednesdays in the park. Please CLICK HERE for the Plant Walk schedule and sites at Apollo Beach.