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American holly

Ilex opaca · Aquifoliaceae · all Ilex records

Your local evidence lens

Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge

Set a ZIP to compare this record with state distribution, native range, USDA hardiness, and invasive records.

A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence: Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Fire-performance conditions: No test or rating condition is normalized.
Fire ecology context: No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
Placement evidence: 3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions: Global; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US; Ohio / Midwest; Virginia / Mid-Atlantic; eastern US; north-central Florida
Maintenance: No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.

Typed publication scope: 3 scopes across 3 cited fire sources

Fire-Resistant Landscaping in North Carolina (AG-874) · Official scoped edition
- NC; complete normalized coverage · 2025-03-26
  The complete three-table AG-874 plant list is explicitly for North Carolina and contains 202 low-, medium-, or high-flammability rows. FireApproved accounts for all source rows under its strict taxonomy and lineage rules; source scope does not establish local suitability at a particular North Carolina site.
Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) · Official scoped edition
- OH; partial normalized coverage · 2006-03-01
  Ohio State University Extension Bulletin 921 is an Ohio publication that describes Ohio fire seasons and landscape conditions and labels nativity to Ohio. FireApproved publishes 352 exact source-owning plant records from its eight rated tables. This historical publication scope does not assert current extension endorsement or that a listed plant suits every Ohio site.
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 AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, MO, MS, NC, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV.
Native range: Current cited native range in AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, MO, MS, NC, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV.
Introduced / established: No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
USDA hardiness: Documented minimum 5a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

Legal-list status: Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
Seed-list status: Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
Reported invasive here: No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
Broader regional context: Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
Federal context: Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.

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.

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

Form: tree
USDA hardiness: Minimum 5a; upper limit not documented
Mature height: ~50 ft
Light: Full sun
Water need: moderate
Current cited native range: AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL, IN, KY, LA, MA, MD, MO, MS, NC, NJ, NY, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, TN, TX, VA, WV
Grows in: AL, AR, CT, DC, DE, FL, GA, IL +19
Rated in: Global; NC; North Carolina; North Carolina / southeastern US +4
Family: Aquifoliaceae
Evidence: 11 cited sources

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

27

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

27 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04

Alabama (AL)
Arkansas (AR)
Connecticut (CT)
District of Columbia (DC)
Delaware (DE)
Florida (FL)
Georgia (GA)
Illinois (IL)
Indiana (IN)
Kentucky (KY)
Louisiana (LA)
Massachusetts (MA)
Maryland (MD)
Missouri (MO)
Mississippi (MS)
North Carolina (NC)
New Jersey (NJ)
New York (NY)
Ohio (OH)
Oklahoma (OK)
Pennsylvania (PA)
Rhode I. (RI)
South Carolina (SC)
Tennessee (TN)
Texas (TX)
Virginia (VA)
West Virginia (WV)

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.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector · record ilex-opaca · 2016-wayback · as of 2026-08-26

Source prints 5 · single-value meaning unresolved · whole zone precision · source stated

Source taxon: Ilex opaca · exact match.

Source location: Cold Hardiness Zone field in the recovered selector record.

Not used for comparison: The recovered selector prints one Cold Hardiness Zone value but does not define it as a minimum threshold or a one-zone range.
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics · record ILOP · PLANTS Help Document 2022; characteristics cache retrieved 2026-08-23 · as of 2026-08-26

Minimum 5a · no upper limit documented · half zone precision · derived containing band

Exact source measurement: -20°F; mapped only to its containing half-zone.

Source taxon: Ilex opaca · source identifier match.

Source location: PlantCharacteristics record 74958, Temperature, Minimum (°F).

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.

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector: Landscape Zone 3 — 10–30 ft from the structure; thin vegetation, remove debris, and minimize plant massing [Fire Performance Plant Selector landscape zone] (mid-scale rating)
Firewise Landscaping: keep 30 ft from the home (Zone 3) [OSU B921 source-category siting] (with its avoid rating)
North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox: ilex-opaca, ilex-opaca-clarendon-spreading [nc-toolbox-flammability-facet] (with its avoid rating)

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.

Avoids (6)

Firewise Landscaping in North Carolina (E05-44596) — NC State University / NC Cooperative Extension + USFWS (Bardon, Van Druten) · 2005 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: nc-tree

“High flammability rating”
Firewise Landscaping (OSU Extension Bulletin 921) — Ohio State University Extension (Sydnor, Steward, Kloss / Ohio DNR Division of Forestry) · 2006 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“H flammability”

Tolerates wet conditions; use cold hardy cultivars; cosmetic insect concerns.
Virginia Firescapes — Firewise Landscaping for Woodland Homes (430-300) — Virginia Cooperative Extension / Virginia Tech (Appleton, Frenzel, Hillegass, Lyons, Steward — Virginia Firewise Landscaping Task Force) · 2009 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“H flammability”

Prone to native holly leafminer damage. Tolerates wet conditions.
Fire-Resistant Landscaping in North Carolina (AG-874) — NC State Extension (Kays, Fawcett, Query, Thompson-Welch, Bardon) · 2025 · original source Primary evidence Expert-curated lineage: nc-tree resolves to Firewise Landscaping in North Carolina (E05-44596)

“high flammability”
Flammability of native understory species in pine flatwood and hardwood hammock ecosystems — International Journal of Wildland Fire (Behm, Duryea, Long, Zipperer) · 2004 · original source Primary evidence Lab-tested lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“Most flammable species studied”

Aboveground plant structure, foliage, litter, stems, moisture, volatile solids, and energy were compared across the study taxa.
North Carolina Extension Gardener Plant Toolbox — plant profiles and flammability ratings — NC State Extension (plants.ces.ncsu.edu) · live facet capture accessed 2026-08-23 · original source Corroboration Expert-curated lineage: nc-tree resolves to Firewise Landscaping in North Carolina (E05-44596)

“high flammability” · original source

NC Toolbox facet capture lists "Ilex opaca", "Ilex opaca 'Clarendon Spreading'" under the high flammability tag.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Eastern United States Fire Performance Plant Selector — USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area S&PF + state Firewise programs (WV, OH, PA, DE, DC, MD, NJ) · 2016-wayback · original source Primary evidence Keyed curation lineage: ufifas-srs-tree

“AT RISK Firewise (3)”

Red and yellow forms available-produces much debris.

Listed without a rating (4)

FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

4 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.
- “flame height (cm): 4.23” · score 4.23 (FLAMITS — flame height (cm))
  
  FLAMITS record 9228; Combustibility measurement; plant part litter; fuel all; predrying no; device burning bench; site Mola2014-1; sampling may and june. Primary study Mola2014: Mola, J. M., Varner, J. M., Jules, E. S., & Spector, T. (2014). Altered Community Flammability in Florida's Apalachicola Ravines and Implications for the Persistence of the Endangered Conifer Torreya taxifolia. Plos One, 9, 8.
- “flaming duration (s): 74.4” · score 74.4 (FLAMITS — flaming duration (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 9245; Sustainability measurement; plant part litter; fuel all; predrying no; device burning bench; site Mola2014-1; sampling may and june. Primary study Mola2014: Mola, J. M., Varner, J. M., Jules, E. S., & Spector, T. (2014). Altered Community Flammability in Florida's Apalachicola Ravines and Implications for the Persistence of the Endangered Conifer Torreya taxifolia. Plos One, 9, 8.
- “burnt biomass (%): 99.11” · score 99.11 (FLAMITS — burnt biomass (%))
  
  FLAMITS record 9262; Consumability measurement; plant part litter; fuel all; predrying no; device burning bench; site Mola2014-1; sampling may and june. Primary study Mola2014: Mola, J. M., Varner, J. M., Jules, E. S., & Spector, T. (2014). Altered Community Flammability in Florida's Apalachicola Ravines and Implications for the Persistence of the Endangered Conifer Torreya taxifolia. Plos One, 9, 8.
- “time to smouldering (s): 144.8” · score 144.8 (FLAMITS — time to smouldering (s))
  
  FLAMITS record 9279; Ignitability measurement; plant part litter; fuel all; predrying no; device burning bench; site Mola2014-1; sampling may and june. Primary study Mola2014: Mola, J. M., Varner, J. M., Jules, E. S., & Spector, T. (2014). Altered Community Flammability in Florida's Apalachicola Ravines and Implications for the Persistence of the Endangered Conifer Torreya taxifolia. Plos One, 9, 8.

Fire-resistant trees instead

Post oak
Quercus stellata

Basswood
Tilia americana

Red maple
Acer rubrum

Wild black cherry
Prunus serotina

White oak
Quercus alba

American beech
Fagus grandifolia

Fire-resistant trees listed above

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

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

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