Florida Forest Trees

Marlberry  (Ardisia escallonioides)

Marlberry is also known as marbleberry and dogberry. Marlberry is somewhat common in the coastal hammocks and pinelands of south Florida and the Keys. It occasionally is found as far north as Flager County in Florida. Usually an understory species, marlberry grows in the shade of taller trees such as pines and cabbage palm throughout its range that includes, besides Florida, the West Indies, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Native Americans in Florida called this tree, the black tobacco-seasoning tree, because they mixed		    

Twigs, leaves, fruit, and flowers

its leaves with their tobacco to make it go further. The tart, acidic fruit is edible but unappealing to people. It is useful to birds, squirrels, and other mammals gathering food.

Its rich, dark, hard, heavy wood is not economically important due to the small size of the tree.

Marlberry is a member of the genus Ardisia, one of 40 genera of the Myrsinaceae family. This family has over 1,000 species of tropical trees and shrubs but only two members, marlberry and myrsine, are present in the United States, both only in Florida. A member of the same genus as marlberry is Ardisia crenata, a non-native shrub that has been introduced to Florida as an attractive landscape plant because of its bright red berries and glossy foliage. Ardisia crenata is fast becoming a troublesome invasive, leaving people's yards and moving into moist wooded areas.

 Identifying Characteristics
Size/Form:
 Marlberry is an evergreen large shrub or small tree that usually grows to 12' in height but can reach heights of 25'. It has a narrow, columnar crown with branches that bend downward when the tree flowers and fruits.
Leaves:
 The narrow leaves are 3" to 6" long and 1" to 2" wide, simple, and alternately arranged. The leaves can be a variety of shapes - oblong, ovate, oblanceolate, and elliptical. The leaves have leathery, glossy, yellow green, upper surfaces with paler surfaces underneath that have glands that appear as black dots. The leaf base is wedged and the leaf tip is acute to rounded. The leaf margin is entire, thickened, and somewhat rolled backwards.
Fruit:
 The fruit is a round, glossy drupe that is ¼" wide. The berry first appears as red and then turns dark purple to black as it ripens. It has a thin skin covering a dry, fleshy interior enclosing a single red-brown seed. The fruit hangs in dense clusters.
Bark:
 The light gray to pinkish white bark is thin and splits into papery, platelike scales.
Habitat:
 Marlberry prefers well-drained, sandy, ridge soils. It is most common in hammocks, pinelands, and other areas near the ocean.


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