Beautyberries are cute, of course
In the famous spring of 2021, someone gave me four beautyberry plants. I had no idea what to do with them because I was an ignoramus about beautyberry plants. This was not my first encounter with being an ignoramus, so I arranged them in a large pot on my deck. When cold weather came, I brought the pot inside until the famous spring of 2022. Again, they watched the world from my deck during summer and through the living room window in winter until the famous spring of 2023.
By then I was slightly less of an ignoramus about beautyberries, and I had read that our famous deer eat their leaves (yum yum), so I transplanted my four upstarts into the fenced-in garden as part of a move toward more perennials. They sat in complacent innocence all summer, and the leaves died off during winter. My gardener sense said wait till spring to see what’s next, and, yes indeed, three of them sprouted new leaves by the end of April. The fourth did not survive the winter.
Now, at the end of their fourth summer on the property, the three plants fruited. Most beautyberry plants are Callicarpa americana and bear magenta-purple fruit. Mine are bearing white fruit, so they are the “Alba” version apparently.
The little white fruits are called drupes because inside the fleshy part is a hard endocarp with seeds inside like apricots and olives but way smaller. The 2024 drupes in my garden are first-year small – less than a quarter-inch so far. They gather around the woody branches at the leaf axils, and, unless birds eat them, will outlast the leaves that will fall after frost.
Being mostly an ignoramus on this subject, I had no idea beautyberries were common here and there around the globe. There are species native to southern Asia, Australia, the tropical parts of Central and South America, southern part of Africa, even Madagascar. There are Madagascar orioles and starlings that know more about beautyberries than I do. I wonder if lemurs eat beautyberries. I hope so because beautyberries provide a full load of antioxidants, vitamins and fiber. Lemurs need their fiber.
In our area, brown thrashers, robins and other birds will nibble on beautyberries, and white-tailed deer will defoliate a plant–even though it is not their favorite– because their plan for the planet is different from ours, and deer know there is protein in those leaves which helps them jump tall fences and evade motor cars most of the time.
Way back when, folks like us spent more of our lives outside, and we learned to rub beautyberry leaves on our skin to repel mosquitoes. Try it. Researchers have identified two components of beautyberry leaves– intermedeol and callicarpenal, and I did not make that up – that are natural bug repellents. If they repel ticks and chiggers, then I’m a big fan. Next spring, I get to try it out.
Native Americans included beautyberry leaves and roots in their sweat bath infusions to combat fevers and even more serious ailments such as malaria. Traditional Chinese Medicine used beautyberries to slow bleeding. Recent lab studies have demonstrated that a compound in beautyberry leaves boosts the ability of drugs to fight certain staphylococcus bacteria. That’s impressive for demure plants growing in my garden.
Depending on varieties and microclimate, beautyberry plants might grow five feet tall or more and just as wide. I planted two plants too close together because then I was an ignoramus, but now I know starlings and orioles in Madagascar eat beautyberries. The plants might lose leaves during extreme weather, but the bush remains hardy.
Beautyberries can be propagated by softwood cuttings. You can also harvest mature drupes for the seeds. The plants replicate by seeds being dispersed, so a crafty gardener could simply plant a few drupes hither thither and see what happens.
The famous drupes are edible but bland. You can eat them raw but try only a few at a time. Folks make jelly and wine with them or include them in fruit salad like they do in Madagascar.