# Evergreen Bayberry (Morella caroliniensis)

> A colony-forming bayberry of southern bogs and swamps, with spicy-scented leaves and gray-white waxy fruit that feeds birds through the winter.

Also called southern bayberry, swamp bayberry, Myrica heterophylla, Myrica caroliniensis. Category: Native Shrubs. Grown from seed by Blue Whale Trees. Web version: https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/evergreen-bayberry/

![Evergreen bayberry (Morella caroliniensis) leathery oblong leaves on branching gray twigs](https://bluewhaletrees.com/img/plants/evergreen-bayberry-h1610-800.jpg)
*Photo: Krzysztof Ziarnek, CC BY-SA 4.0, cropped · [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AMorella_caroliniensis_kz01.jpg)*

## Facts

- Type: Shrub
- Mature height: 8 to 12 ft
- USDA hardiness zones: 6 to 9
- Grows wild in: Stream banks, sandy barrens, swamps and wet flats
- Native range: 16 states, north to [New York](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NY), south to [Florida](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=FL) and west to [Texas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=TX) ([Alabama](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=AL), [Arkansas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=AR), [Delaware](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=DE), [Florida](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=FL), [Georgia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=GA), [Louisiana](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=LA), [Maryland](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MD), [Massachusetts](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MA), [Mississippi](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=MS), [New Jersey](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NJ), [New York](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NY), [North Carolina](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=NC), [Pennsylvania](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=PA), [South Carolina](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=SC), [Texas](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=TX) and [Virginia](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/native/index.html.md?state=VA))
- Sun: Full, Part
- Soil moisture: Average, Wet
- Growth rate: Medium
- Flowers: April to June
- Fruit: Berries, August to February
- First crop: 3 to 4 years
- Mature spread: 15 ft
- Traits: Wildlife value, Hedge or screen, Tolerates wet soil, Nitrogen fixing
- Sold as: Saplings, Seed

Heights and zones are typical ranges for the species in cultivation; local conditions and seed source shift them.

## Availability

Saplings ship [bare-root](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/planting-bare-root-trees-on-arrival/index.html.md) or [in a pot](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/a-sapling-in-a-pot/index.html.md), [usually 12 to 18 inches tall](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/small-sapling-or-big-transplant/index.html.md), in the dormant season, and their height and age are stated with the price, once available. Live plants ship February to May and October to November. Not priced yet: leave an email on the web page for one email when it is priced, with a code for 10% off the plants in that order, not shipping or tax, or write to captain@bluewhaletrees.com.

## Notes

Evergreen bayberry is the southern counterpart of our northern bayberry. Its leathery leaves smell spicy when crushed, and female plants carry small fruits coated in gray to white wax. Without fruit the two bayberries are hard to tell apart. Its young fruit is smooth where northern bayberry's is fuzzy, and some botanists treat the two as one species. Maryland lists it as threatened. Grow it as a screen or hedge on wet, acid ground, where its waxy fruit feeds wintering birds.

## Size, growth and what to expect

No source rates its growth, so our growth estimator treats it as a medium grower, like our northern bayberry, about a foot and a half a year. It makes a shrub or small tree 8 to 12 feet tall, now and then 20, and root sprouts spread it into thickets 4 to 15 feet wide. Its leathery leaves run 1 to 5 inches long and stay on through winter or drop late in the season.

Small catkins open from April to June, the males and females on separate plants. On female plants the round fruits, under a quarter inch across and coated in gray to white wax, ripen from late summer into fall. They hang on into winter, when yellow-rumped warblers and other birds eat them, and the plant hosts the red-banded hairstreak butterfly.

It grows wild on the coastal plain from New Jersey and Pennsylvania south to Florida and west to Texas and Arkansas. Its home is bogs, swamps, stream and pond margins, wet pine flatwoods near pitcher-plant bogs and moist woods.

## How to grow Evergreen Bayberry

Evergreen bayberry grows in full sun or part shade, in a moist to wet, acid soil of sand or peat. It takes ground that floods now and then, but not salt spray or salt water. Set plants 6 feet apart for a screen and keep them 7 feet from a wall, since root sprouts widen the clump. At its size it can go within 15 feet of overhead wires.

Saplings ship bare-root or potted. Plant them in a hole wider than the roots and no deeper. Set the crown at the soil line, put the native soil back in, and keep the mulch clear of the stems. Bayberry seed will not sprout through its wax, so rub the wax off on a screen or soak it off in warm water. Sow cleaned seed outdoors in late fall under mulch, and seedlings come up in spring. For a spring sowing, keep it damp in the refrigerator for 90 days first.

Water weekly through the first two summers unless the ground stays wet. Like other bayberries, its roots host bacteria that fix nitrogen, so skip fertilizer.

Plants are male or female, and only females bear the waxy fruit, so plant three or more seedlings for a male and a female. The wood is somewhat brittle, but a plant cut to the ground grows back from the roots.

## Sources

- [Flora of North America, vol. 3: Myrica heterophylla](http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=1&taxon_id=233500792)
- [Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center: Morella caroliniensis](https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=MOCA7)
- [Florida Native Plant Society: Morella caroliniensis](https://www.fnps.org/plant/morella-caroliniensis)
- [USDA Forest Service, Woody Plant Seed Manual (2008), Myrica and Morella chapter, Griffin and Blazich](https://rngr.net/publications/wpsm/genera/m/at_download/file)
- [NatureServe Explorer: Morella caroliniensis](https://explorer.natureserve.org/Taxon/ELEMENT_GLOBAL.2.150162/Morella_caroliniensis)
- [Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Natural Heritage Program: List of Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Plants of Maryland, March 2026](https://dnr.maryland.gov/wildlife/Documents/Maryland-NHP-RTE-Plant-List.pdf)
- [Delaware Division of Fish and Wildlife: Rare and Uncommon Plants of Delaware](https://documents.dnrec.delaware.gov/fw/conservation/Rare-and-Uncommon-Plants-of-Delaware.pdf)

## Read before planting

- [Ten planting mistakes that quietly kill trees](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/ten-planting-mistakes/index.html.md)
- [Transplanting young trees: timing, water and protection](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/transplanting-young-trees/index.html.md)
- [Protecting young trees from voles, rabbits, deer and squirrels](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/protecting-trees-from-animals/index.html.md)
- [How fast every tree and shrub we grow gets tall: growth rate, A to Z](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/growth-rates/index.html.md)
- [The habitat around a tree is part of the tree](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/habitat-around-a-tree/index.html.md)
- [Invasive vines and shrubs are what is killing your woods](https://bluewhaletrees.com/articles/invasive-vines-and-shrubs/index.html.md)

## Related

- Other bayberries (Morella) we grow: [Northern Bayberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/northern-bayberry/index.html.md), [Odorless Bayberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/odorless-bayberry/index.html.md)
- Trees to plant it under: [Redbay](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/redbay/index.html.md), [Willow Oak](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/willow-oak/index.html.md) and [Atlantic White Cedar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/plants/atlantic-white-cedar/index.html.md)
- [Planting-site check](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md): for a thrive, struggle or fail verdict on Evergreen Bayberry, add ?species=evergreen-bayberry with zone (2 to 10), sun (full, part, shade) and moisture (dry, average, wet) to that address; for example, the verdict for zone 6, part sun and average soil as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/site-check/index.html.md?species=evergreen-bayberry&zone=6&sun=part&moisture=average
- [Companion species for Evergreen Bayberry](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/companions/index.html.md?species=evergreen-bayberry): the natives that share its ground and the plants that pair with it in a yard.
- [Growth estimator](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md): how the height and trunk projections are made; the estimate for Evergreen Bayberry as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/growth/index.html.md?species=evergreen-bayberry (add height=, years= and site= poor, average or good)
- [Seed sowing planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md): how Evergreen Bayberry is sown, in the chart for every species (treatment, cold days, depth, timing); the dated plan for it as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/sowing/index.html.md?species=evergreen-bayberry (add state= and zone= for your own frost dates, method=fridge for the refrigerator route)
- [Pollination planner](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md): what Evergreen Bayberry needs for a crop and how many to plant, in the table for every species; the verdict for 3 of them as Markdown is at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/pollination/index.html.md?plants=evergreen-bayberry:3
- [Planting-window tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md): when to plant Evergreen Bayberry where you live, as a fall and a spring window from the local frost dates; the windows as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/planting-window/index.html.md?species=evergreen-bayberry&state=MO&zone=6 with your own state and zone in place of those
- [Planting-distance tool](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md): how far Evergreen Bayberry goes from a house, a septic field, a walk, wires, a property line and the next tree; the distances as Markdown are at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/distance/index.html.md?species=evergreen-bayberry&near=house,septic,pavement,wires,boundary,tree
- [Bloom and fruit calendar](https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md): the months Evergreen Bayberry flowers and fruits, in the grid for every species; its own row and the gaps of a planting with it as Markdown at https://bluewhaletrees.com/tools/calendar/index.html.md?plants=evergreen-bayberry