United States / Grow / English holly

English holly (Ilex aquifolium)
Photo: no rights reserved (CC0), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

English holly

Ilex aquifolium · Aquifoliaceae · all Ilex records · Wikipedia

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Ilex aquifolium cites keep away recommendation. Then 3 ecological invasive reports on Ilex aquifolium. The facts answer different questions — Ilex aquifolium. On ilex aquifolium, avoid does not replace 3 ecological invasive reports. Ilex aquifolium is the taxon those two facts attach to.

Ilex aquifolium also carries same form alternatives.

Use evidence on Ilex aquifolium. Use related plants on Ilex aquifolium. The jumps stay with Ilex aquifolium. On ilex aquifolium, avoid sits with 3 ecological invasive reports beside Ilex aquifolium.

Fire-resistant trees instead

Form
tree
Mature height
~15 ft
Light
Part sun
Rated in
Catalonia, Spain; Global; Tasmania, Australia; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic +1
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Catalonia, Spain; Global; Tasmania, Australia; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US
Typed publication scope: 1 scope across 1 cited fire source
  • Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) · Official scoped edition
    • VA; partial normalized coverage · 2009-04-15

      Virginia Cooperative Extension's publication opens with Virginia wildfire conditions, identifies its Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force, and labels plants native to Virginia. FireApproved publishes 306 exact source owners. Publication scope does not establish parcel suitability or current endorsement of this archived 2009 list.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in CA, DC, DE, HI, MD, NJ, OH, OR, PA, VA, WA, WV.
Introduced / established
7 sourced range or established records. This is not an invasive warning.
USDA hardiness
Only uncertain or inapplicable hardiness rows are cited; no primary zone is projected.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Reported invasive here
3 ecological invasive reports.
How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

0

exact source areas

Current introduced

7

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

7 introduced source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • California (CA)
  • Hawaii (HI)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • Washington (WA)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (1)

Avoids (2)

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Listed without a rating (1)
Corroboration (1 rows from 1 source)
  • FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

    “time to flaming (s): 23.29”

    FLAMITS record 9689; Ignitability measurement; plant part leaves; fuel live; predrying no; device muffle furnace; site Murray2013-1; sampling march to april. Primary study Murray2013: Murray, B. R., Hardstaff, L. K., & Phillips, M. L. (2013). Differences in leaf flammability, leaf traits and flammability-trait relationships between native and exotic plant species of dry sclerophyll forest. PLoS One, 8, e79205.

Fire-resistant trees instead

Fire-resistant trees listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Ilex aquifolium (English holly). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/ilex-aquifolium/. Last verified 2026-08-23.