Ilex mitisRadlk.

African hollyCape hollywater treewild holly

WFO wfo-0000729632 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Ilex mitis, photographed by Justin Ponder
fig. a Justin Ponder, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-02 / obs. 193842347
Ilex mitis, photographed by Corne Brink
fig. b Corne Brink, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 193506264
Ilex mitis, photographed by douglaseustonbrown
fig. c douglaseustonbrown, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 195308279
Ilex mitis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. d Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 172267793
Ilex mitis, photographed by Andrew Hankey
fig. e Andrew Hankey, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 171861512
Ilex mitis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. f Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 165666281
Ilex mitis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. g Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 140992896
Ilex mitis, photographed by Paul Emms
fig. h Paul Emms, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 138105079

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 26 botanical countries

Regions where Ilex mitis is native: Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, DR Congo, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Free State, Guinea, Gulf of Guinea Is., Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBurundiCameroonCape ProvincesDR CongoEswatiniEthiopiaFree StateGuineaGulf of Guinea Is.KenyaKwaZulu-NatalLesothoLiberiaMadagascarMalawiMozambiqueNigeriaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSierra LeoneSudan-South SudanTanzaniaUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Ilex mitis, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Angola ANG AFRICA
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
DR Congo ZAI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Free State OFS
Guinea GUI
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Lesotho LES
Liberia LBR
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Rwanda RWA
Sierra Leone SIE
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 40 in flower of 240 examined

Peak flowering in Nov. Each bar is the share of Ilex mitis observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 40 of 240 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 10 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Celastrus sieberi Bernh. ex Harv. & Sond.
  • Gymnosporia brachystachya Baker
  • Ilex capensis Harv. & Sond.
  • Ilex mitis var. mitis
  • Manglilla milleriana Pers.
  • Myrsine mitis Spreng.
  • Prinos laurinus Thury ex Choisy
  • Scleroxylum mite (L.) Willd.
  • Sideroxylon mite L.
  • Sideroxylon nigricans Dum.Cours. ex A.DC.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.