Red Bay (Persea borbonia) is a native evergreen broadleaf shrub that grows in the understory of the pine pocosin forests at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Its flowers are very attractive to bees in the summer. And its fruit is eaten by songbirds, black bears, raccoons, opossums and other small mammals. Some fruit persists through the winter and is available to songbirds on their migration north in the spring.