May 9, 2023 · By Erik Olsen

Toyon, the Everyday California Shrub That May Have Named Hollywood

You’ve walked past toyon a thousand times. California’s red-berried native shrub feeds winter birds, was food and medicine for Indigenous Californians, and may be the “holly” in Hollywood.

Updated Oct 12, 2026

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If you live in California, you’ve walked past toyon a thousand times. It’s the big, scruffy evergreen shrub on the hillside, in the freeway landscaping and in half the backyards in the state, and in winter it’s covered in bright red berries. Most people never learn its name. They should, because it’s one of the most useful plants in California, and it might even be the reason Hollywood is called Hollywood.

Toyon’s scientific name is Heteromeles arbutifolia. Heteromeles comes from the Greek for “different apple,” because the little red fruits look like tiny apples, which makes sense once you know toyon is in the rose family, along with apples.

It grows from Oregon down into Baja California and fits in almost anywhere: coastal sage scrub, dry chaparral and oak woodland. It handles sun or shade, wet soil or dry, and it can grow 8 to 15 feet tall. The leaves are tough, leathery and toothed along the edges, and they stay green all year, even through a long, dry summer.

The berries are the main event. They ripen in late fall and hang on all winter, when there isn’t much else to eat, so birds like cedar waxwings and robins go after them in flocks. Coyotes and bears eat them too. In early summer, before the berries, the shrub is covered in small cream-colored flowers that bring in bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

Toyon along the California coast (Erik Olsen)

People have been using toyon for a long time. California’s Indigenous peoples, including the Chumash, Tongva and Ohlone, knew the plant well. The berries are bitter raw, but cooking, drying or mashing them makes them edible, and they were turned into porridge, cider and jelly. According to some accounts, the berries were also sun-dried and ground into a flour-like meal called “pinole.” Later settlers added sugar and made custard and wine.

The leaves were medicine. The Chumash used them in steam baths for aching joints and breathing problems, as a poultice for sores, wounds and insect bites, and in a tea for stomach trouble. The wood is hard and dense, good for digging sticks, arrows and ceremonial wands. Some sources say the Cahuilla used toyon branches in mourning ceremonies as a symbol of rebirth.

Then there’s the Hollywood question. Another name for toyon is “California holly,” and the hills around Los Angeles were once covered in it. Some people think that’s where Hollywood got its name. Nobody has been able to prove it, and there are other theories, but it’s a better story than most of them.

Toyon in San Gabriel mountains

Next time you see a big green bush loaded with red berries in December, take a closer look. It’s probably toyon, and it’s been feeding birds and people in California for a very long time.