North Coast toyon berries are nature's holiday decorations

It has happened again. The tall Pyracantha shrubs up the street have been stripped of red berries.

Now their bare shoots hang at forlorn angles to the ground. Every year about this time, anonymous collectors come to gather holiday décor, perhaps working in haste, maybe even by night and wearing stealth masks and caps.

Whoever they were, whenever they came, they passed up a smaller shrub also bearing tiny, crimson fruit in fist-sized bunches. This one’s a native toyon. Often overlooked for the imported Pyracantha, the toyon survived the pilfering, but probably not because California state law protects wild toyon in some places.

Why the preference? Like Pyracantha, toyon is an evergreen. It too comes into fruited splendor in winter. It’s unarmed (no thorns, unlike the spiky Pyracantha whose Greek name means firethorn).

Toyon thrives on neglect, so even I can grow it. Best of all, it’s far less thirsty than its exotic cousin. Of all the native shrubs in my garden, the toyons have shown the least effects of years of drought, even at the height of heat and aridity.

Part of the rose family, toyon bears fruits that are really tiny pomes, fleshy and with a tough central core containing seeds, like an apple or pear. (Botany enthusiasts know that toyon’s genus name, Heteromeles, means different apples; in “A California Flora,” Philip Munz notes toyon is “unlike neighboring genera” with their “berrylike pomes.”)

The Anglicized Mexican-Spanish name, tollón, is said to come from the Ohlone totcon, making it one native plant that’s kept a semblance of its birth name through California’s many changes. At this time of year, toyon’s most festive names - California Christmas berry and California holly - jump out from field guides as the shrub itself stands out in the oak woodland and coastal oak savanna that it graces.

Can you eat the berries? Yes, although some say they’re an acquired taste.

In “The Ohlone Way,” Malcolm Margolin writes that toyon berries were part of the early Californian staple diet, “to cook, to eat out of hand, to dry for later use, or to make into a refreshing cider.” Other accounts call the toyon berry bitter and only worth eating “when we were starving.” The California grizzly bear relished it, substituting fall and winter huckleberry and toyon when summer manzanita, blackberry, elderberry, wild grape and madrone ran out. Toyon season just preceded denning season, when grizzly also ate ground squirrels and fall-run salmon.

Toyon’s edibility does not extend to its leaves which, if eaten, may cause serious illness or death, according to the University of California Safe and Poisonous Garden Plants website. It also notes that the berries of toyon’s cousin, Pyracantha, may incur dermatitis if touched and illness if eaten, although, those reactions are related to toxic sprays. “Treatment should be directed to the insecticide, with less concern over the berries,” according to the Food and Drug Administration Poisonous Plant Database.

If thinking of planting toyon, call the County Cooperative Extension or Agricultural Commissioner’s office. In 2001, it was confirmed as one of several host plants for the fungus-like pathogen Phytophthora ramorum (Sudden Oak Death). Since 1999, Phytophthora has caused the death of tens of thousands of tanoak and coast live oaks in California and Oregon. The experts can offer help identifying host plants, affected trees and concerns to consider when landscaping.

The rewards of toyon are many. Butterfly and birds love it, qualifying it as a habitat plant. The berries persist for a long time, because birds don’t relish it until the fruit is very ripe. Holiday collectors, however, might be another story, especially those who prefer Heteromeles to Pyracantha and gather by night.

Rebecca Lawton is a Sonoma-based author and scientist .