These photos were taken 1/28/12, zone 8, north central Florida. The first photo shows the entire plant which is about 3' high at this point but I feel it's a young plant. It mainly has one upright skinny stem presently. It's thorny & evergreen. Growing at the base of a wild persimmon which is the trunk you see & some dormant beauty berry are behind it on the other side of the persimmon. In the very last photo I am showing the tip top of the main stem --- this was after a hard frost hit us.

Makes me think of Vaccinium... Does this ever make berries?

I have no idea ..... yet. I'm keeping an eye on it. I first saw it around maybe June & I did check for any signs of prior fruiting or even blooms & saw none but it's a young plant I'm sure of that so was not surprised I could find no evidence of blooms or fruit. I'll check out the Vaccinium. See if I can get any ideas.

Do any of them have thorns?

They sure do, many of them.

I didn't know that. Learn something new everyday.

Here are some additional photos I took yesterday. I would note that I observed leaf buds & stems growing out of the actual thorns themselves. My camera is not capable of getting super, super close ups of small details but you can make it out in this photo.



These leaves are 2" in length.

To me, this has the habit of Berberis, can't be sure though.

Berberis thunbergii is close, and on the map not far from you.

http://plants.usda.gov/java/pr...

Berberis aristata is similar too, they don't have to be native as seed can be carried by birds.

http://www.motherherbs.com/ber...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...

Best wait for flowers I think.

I agree.

No sign of flower buds yet. Just thought I would add this photo for future. In this photo you can see the tiny leaf emerging from the thorn. The thorns start out as normal looking thorns & then they elongate & new leaves emerge near the tips of the thorn & they in turn grow into new leaved stems & so forth. Compare the thorn with leaf emerging with the thorn to the left of it.