Holly
Ilex aquifoliumHolly is an evergreen, most often a small tree in hedges and woods. Its glossy leaves are spiny low down and almost smooth higher up. Only female trees carry the red berries.
How to identify holly →
Eleftherios Katsillis, CC BY 4.0
Lookalikes
Holly or strawberry tree?
Both are dark evergreens holding round red fruit into the winter.
The quickest check
The quickest check is the fruit surface. Holly: satiny crimson, up to 12 mm across. Strawberry tree: warty all over, about 2 cm across. No berries on the tree? Check the edge of a low leaf.
At a glance
| Look at | Holly | Strawberry tree |
|---|---|---|
| Fruit surface | Satiny crimson, up to 12 mm across | Warty all over, about 2 cm across |
| Edge of a low leaf | Big triangular spines, up to eight a side | Usually small sharp teeth, sometimes plain |
| Flowers, and when | Four white petals, in May and June | White bells narrow at the mouth, October to December |
Three ways to tell them apart
Fruit surfaceBerries
Edge of a low leafLeaves
Flowers, and whenFlowers
The two trees
Strawberry tree
Arbutus unedoThe strawberry tree is a small evergreen planted in gardens. In autumn, white flowers open beside last year's berries. The berries are round and warty, and ripen from yellow to red.
In the app
See them side by side in Treely
- Both trees, part by partLeaves, bark, buds, flowers and fruit, photographed through the year
- Every lookalike side by sideThe checks that settle it, for every pair people mix up
- A short round each dayUntil you can tell them apart at a glance
- The full GuideBoth trees written up in full, with where to find them
Free to download.
Every fact on this page is checked against the Collins Tree Guide, last in November 2026. Spotted something that looks wrong in front of a real tree? Tell us. How we check.
Photographs: Leon Cross (CC BY 4.0), Eleftherios Katsillis (CC BY 4.0), pete_gateley (CC0), zebedeugalinha (CC BY 4.0). With thanks to everyone who shares their photographs on iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons.