Happy Mystery Monday! Can you guess who is pictured in photo #1?
The answer to last week’s mystery is winterberry, Ilex verticillata, pictured in photo #2.
Winterberry, Ilex verticillata, is best known for the bright red fruits that cling to its bare branches through Fall and Winter. Despite the name, these colorful structures aren’t berries at all: they’re drupes, the same type of fruit that includes cherries, peaches, olives, and plums. Each drupe consists of a fleshy outer layer surrounding a hard, stone-like “nutlet” that contains one or two smooth seeds.
After hard frosts, the outer flesh becomes especially sugary, making winterberry drupes a high-energy food source for birds and wildlife when little else is available. While highly valuable to animals, the fruits are poisonous to humans. The tough seed coat protects the seeds from damage and digestion, allowing them to pass through birds intact and be deposited elsewhere, helping the plant spread naturally.
By holding onto its fruit long after leaves have dropped, winterberry plays a critical role in Winter ecosystems. Its glowing drupes provide both nourishment and visual interest at a time of year when food — and color — are otherwise scarce, making it one of the most important native shrubs for cold-season wildlife support.
Mystery Monday is sponsored by the Spy Newspapers and Adkins Arboretum.
Bird photograph by Larisa Prezioso.
Rebecca Gaffney says
A beautiful Male Cardinal!