Coralberry or Buckbrush – you choose
There’s a shrub in open woods, fields, along roadsides and what is ubiquitously known as “waste places” that we have all seen, yet few of us know. This time of year, it is most conspicuous with light purplish to magenta or shriveling reddish fruits. It’s about waist high, and a native plant that doesn’t get the respect it deserves.
It is a member of the Caprifoliaceae or honeysuckle family. Today, botanists call it Symphoricarpos orbiculatus. “Symphoricarpos” a genus of about 15 species, means “to bear together” and “fruit,” referring to the tightly clustered fruits at the end of the stems. The most widely used common name these days is coralberry. It’s also called Indian currant. When I arrived in the Ozarks more than 40 years ago, I came to know it by the name most widely used in Izard County — buckbrush.
This common understory shrub occurs in a variety of habitats and is found throughout the Midwest from southern Canada to Mexico. It often forms thickets on degraded woodlands, because of disturbance or grazing.
In the Ozarks, the flexible stems are a basket-making material. Never an important medicinal or food plant, indigenous groups in the upper Midwest, including the Dakota and Chippewa, applied decoction of the leaves and inner bark to treat sore or inflamed eyes.
The root powder is a styptic and subastringent in the treatment for intermittent fevers in the late 18th century. The charcoal from the wood was used as a tattooing ink by indigenous groups. Most of the information on this plant comes from the writings of ethnologist, Melvin R. Gilmore (1868-1940) founder of the first laboratory to study ethnobotany in the Anthropology Department at the University of Michigan.
Neglected as a native plant, this colonizing, suckering shrub has arching stems that produce a nice thicket of vegetation at the edge of a year, planted on a slope for erosion control, or planted as a wildlife food. Various songbirds, small mammals and deer browse on the fruits or the plants.
It is also drought resistant and does well in poor soils. The fruits are considered slightly toxic and that’s one reason why the berries persist in the winter. Most wildlife eat the berries when nothing else is available.
Think of it as a plant you’ve always seen, but rarely paid attention to it.