Beautyberry: Callicarpa americana

Beautyberry: callicarpa americana

By Heather Brasell

This article is courtesy of the Coastal Plain Chapter of the Georgia Native Plant Society. The GNPS is dedicated to promoting the stewardship and conservation of Georgia’s native plants and their habitats. The Coastal Plain Chapter serves the people in the Coastal Plain ecoregion of Georgia. This includes all areas south of the Fall Line in middle Georgia, from the Alabama and Florida borders to the Atlantic ocean. To learn more, please visit https://gnps.org/chapters/coastal-plains-chapter/.

Beautyberry is a great addition to your garden or woods. A spectacular display in the fall, the beautyberry is a perennial shrub that has large arching stems laden with dense purple berry clusters. This native plant is not only attractive but also provides many benefits for humans and wildlife alike.

Description

Typical of plants in the verbena family, stems are 4-angled with oppositely arranged branches and leaves. Leaves are oval-shaped, 3-6” long, tapered at both ends, serrated margin, and slightly aromatic when crushed. Leaves turn yellowish in fall. Both stems and underside of leaves are covered with white star-shaped hairs that you can see with a hand lens. Shrubs produce flowers in June-July on current year branches. Flowers are densely clustered in leaf axils, small and pinkish with five petals. Fruits are produced August to November in showy clusters of glossy, purple spherical berry-like drupes that encircle the stem at leaf axils. They persist after the leaves have fallen.

Natural Habitats

Beautyberry occurs on a wide variety of sites— moist to dry and open to shady. It grows throughout Georgia scattered in woodlands and disturbed areas. It can tolerate a lot of soil disturbance, including mowing, mechanical site preparation for forestry and burning. The shrub is deciduous in southeast Georgia, but may keep its leaves through winter in warmer zones.

When it grows in the open, it typically grows to about 4 feet, but in the shade of the woods it can grow to 8 ft. On my property beautyberry grows in thickets with heavy fruit production along margins of woodlands. Inside wooded habitats, plants are taller, more scattered and typically have fewer fruit. In open fencerows, shrubs are smaller, with more stems but with fewer fruit.

Considerations for your garden

Beautyberry is a great addition to your garden,particularly useful in wet and wooded settings.

It is hardy and easily propagated. It prefers part shade and moist soil but can tolerate a wide range of conditions – heat, cold, moderate drought, soil textures, and calcareous soil.

Last year I found in the woods a beautyberry with white berries instead of the usual purple. White varieties are available in nurseries and I had assumed they were just nursery cultivars until I found this one growing in a natural habitat. I have since read that white fruits are rare.

The shrub can be grown from seed, root cuttings, or tip cuttings and survives transplanting fairly well. Plants can be pruned severely when dormant to control the size of plants. Shrubs survive easily under power lines where they are mowed every few years.

Benefits

Beautyberry makes wonderful jelly, with a clear purple/magenta color and delicate flavor. I just learned about this last year, and we organized some of the local children to harvest the berries. Connie Prater of Connie’s Preserves showed the children how she makes the jelly. Connie also demonstrates the process at community events such as our Day in the Woods event in Alapaha on Saturday, April 13.

Beautyberry has long been used as a folk remedy as a natural insect repellent. Researchers are finding evidence that it is as effective as Deet in repelling insects such as mosquitos, ticks, and biting flies. To make a repellant, you steep the leaves in alcohol, blend and strain, adding some oil for good application. You can also make a salve by adding beeswax and heating.

Native Americans used various infusions for medicinal purposes. Root teas were used to treat intestinal problems—stomach ache and dysentery. Root and berry tea was used for colic. Root and leaf teas were used in sweat baths for rheumatism, fevers, and malaria.

Callicarpa species, including American beautyberry, are being investigated for several medicinal properties. There is evidence of antibacterial activity against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and common foodborne pathogens. It can inhibit the herpes simplex virus and replication of the poliovirus. It also has some cytotoxic activity for various human cancers, including prostate cancers, breast cancers, and leukemia.

Beautyberry is valuable as a wildlife food plant. Leaves are browsed by deer, particularly later in summer when there isn’t a lot of food available. Leaves are most nutritious in spring (18% protein) but they still have 8% protein by the end of summer. The fruit provides food for a wide variety of animals in late fall. Fruit is heavily consumed by deer and also eaten by opossum, raccoon, armadillo and rodents. Fruit is also consumed by Northern bobwhite and over 40 species of songbirds, particularly cardinals, robins, mockingbird, thrasher, finch, towhee, and catbird. Birds are the main method of natural seed dispersal.

Photos in this article courtesy of the Coastal Plain Chapter of the Georgia Native Plant Society

References

Chafin, L. G. 2016. Field guide to the wildflowers of Georgia and surrounding states.The University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA.

Grow Network. This natural insect repellent is as effective as Deet! https://thegrownetwork.com/natural-bug-repellent-beautyberry/

Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center. American beautyberry. www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=caam2

Miller, J. H., & K. V. Miller. 2005. Forest plants of the southeast and their wildlife uses.The University of Georgia Press, Athens, GA.