Species Overview

Scientific: Ardisia crenata

Common: coral ardisia, coralberry, christmas berry, scratchthroat, spiceberry, hen’s eyes, marlberry.

Family: Primulaceae

Introduction History: Introduced to Florida in early 1900s as an ornamental plant [2, 5, 7]. Subsequent popularization as an ornamental plant promoted its spread [28, 30]. Modern genetic analysis suggests that Florida populations were the source for expansion into the rest of the Southeastern United States [21].

Origin: East and Southeast Asia.

Species Characteristics

General Description: An evergreen shrub typically 0.5–2 m (1.6—6.5 ft) tall that forms dense colonies in a variety of forest habitat understories. Leaves are dark green, glossy, and arranged alternately along stems. Leaf margins have distinct scalloping. Small, white flowers develop into drooping clusters of bright red drupes at the top of the plant and persist for much of the year, making infestations highly conspicuous.

Habitat: Prefers moist soil conditions. Suburban forests, floodplains, mesic flatwoods, moist forests, and acidic soils of urban woodlands and hardwood hammocks (Weakley et al., 2025; Pipoly & Ricketson, 2009).

Invaded Range: Present domestically in Southeastern United States (FL, GA, LA, TX). Most abundant in North and Central Florida, but uncommon in South Florida (Weakley et al., 2025). 

Leaves: 7-15 cm (2.8—6 in) long smooth, hairless (glabrous), elliptic, narrowly lanceolate or oblanceolate leaves. Distinct scalloped (crenulate or undulate) margins (Jun & Nian-He, 2012; Pipoly & Ricketsonson, 2009).

Flowers: Inflorescences are clusters (umbels or cymes) (Jun & Nian-He, 2012) with 5-18 flowers and produced at the end of the stem. Flowers are white or rarely pink and produced May -June (Pipoly & Ricketsonson, 2009).

Fruit: Drupe type fruit produced July-December, bright red color (sometimes white; Sellers et al., 2024), and spherical (globose), 6-8 mm in diameter (Pipoly & Ricketsonson, 2009; Langeland et al., 2008). These often persist on the plant through winter into the following growing season (Kitajima et al., 2006; Langeland et al., 2008; Sellers et al., 2024). Bird dispersed (Bailey, 1949; Kitajima et al., 2006; Langeland & Burks, 1988; Meisenburg, 2007). Plants can begin to produce fruit in as little as two years following germination (Odenwald & Turner, 1980).

Seeds: Germination rate is positively associated with a cold stratification period (Tezuka et al., 2012).

Notable Look-Alikes: Easily distinguished from other members of this genus by crenate leaf margin. Aucuba japonica (Japanese ardisia) has a serrated leaf margin and is waif in Florida, meaning it will not produce self-sustaining populations (Weakley et al., 2025; Wunderlin et al., 2025). The other two members of the genus are predominantly southern peninsula to central Florida in range and both have entire leaf margins but can be distinguished by their inflorescence: Invasive Ardisia elliptica (shoebutton ardisia) produces umbels with 4-10 flowers; Native Ardisia escallonioides (island marlberry) produces panicles or racemes with 10-70 flowers (Weakley et al., 2025; Wunderlin et al., 2025).

Toxicity: “Although there is no published literature supporting the toxicity of coral ardisia to livestock, it is suspected that the berries and/or foliage are poisonous to livestock, pets, and humans. In 2001, 2007, 2012, and 2020, the plant was the suspected causal agent for cattle deaths in Florida.” [25]

Fun Fact: Plants within Ardisia produce compounds which have been studied for therapeutic usage in traditional medicine [13].

Impacts

• Categorization/Regulation: FISC Category I, UF/IFAS Assessment “Prohibited”; Florida Noxious Weed List [8]
• Forms dense monocultures in understory, reducing native plant species richness by heavily impacting available light at soil surface [3, 4, 10, 15]. Reported as having up to 300 stems per square meter [12].
• Substantial seed production and viability promotes colonization and can be easily observed insitu, with many seedlings surrounding mature plants [15, 28].
• Resprouts vigorously following distubance by cutting or fire [12, 14].
• Previous ornamental usage may have artifically selected certain traits which compound the invasive ability of this plant, such as greater fertility and greater proportion of root biomass allocation [9, 12].
• In mixedhardwood forests, this plant has been documented to acquire effective mycorrhizal fungi associations which facilitate its growth [3].

Do not plant this species in home landscapes. Do not transport the plant to new areas.

Physical management is difficult once the plant has established, but persistent effort to control and a healthy ground cover will limit seedling establishment.

Mechanical methods can be grouped into several strategies. With small or isolated infestations, hand-pulling is effective for seedling control. Larger plants can be cut or burned, but regrow from underground rhizomes and root crowns. Disking can be very effective if the disking operation is frequent and sufficiently deep to cut the rhizome/rootstocks. However, the use of disking is very limited due to the type of areas that ardisia is most problematic – woodlands. It must also be noted that any type of mechanical operation, whether it be disking or burning, should be monitored for at least one year to inspect and remove seedlings and/or resprouts.

There are no known biological control agents for coral ardisia.

• Basal bark: 10% Garlon 4.
• Foliar: 3% Garlon 3A. The addition of 1% Plateau to Garlon 3A as a foliar treatment may provide preemergent suppression of new seedlings for several months.