Callicarpa Americana
Callicarpa americana, is also known as American beautyberry or French Mulberry. It is a native plant to southeastern United States. French mulberry or American beautyberry is a member of the Verbena family. Known for it’s colorful berries, American beautyberry has clusters of pink flowers which are inconspicuous and bloom in late summer followed by clusters of magenta berries. Bees are attracted to the flowers and birds eat the berries in fall. This plant is a deciduous shrub with coarse textured leaves. The stems may die to the ground in cold winters. It can be found growing wild and is hardy to zone 7. This moderately fast grower reaches to 5 feet or more. It is a mounding but irregular loose branched shrub and is short lived of less than 10 years.
American beautyberry is often found along woodland edges in poor soils. It is tolerant of almost any well-drained soil and prefers slightly acid soil. Plants produce more fruit in full sun and less fruit in shade. The leaves drop in fall but the berries remain. As I found out, the berries don’t last long as birds will strip the plant of fruit. The berries produce on new growth and can be cut back in winter without loss of berries in fall.
Propagate American beautyberry by seeds. It blooms August to November. Container plants may be planted in the landscape at any time. It does not need to be fertilized but may be fertilized in late winter with ½ cup for small plants to 1 cup for large plants of all-purpose fertilizer or use slow release fertilizer as recommended. Plants should be planted at the same level grown in container.
American beautyberry can be used as a native deciduous plant and to attract wildlife. It has showy white, pink to purple berries. It is drought tolerant. This plant appears as a single plant or in a large colony.
Other varieties; C. americana, variety ‘Lactea’ has white fruit, C. dichotoma, C. has light lavender berries and is more cold hardy, C. japonica (C. shikokiana) produces light pinkish-lilac and purple berries and does well in upper South, ‘Leucocarpa’ produces white berries, C. bodinieri, the Bodinier beautyberry is an large and loose and produces an abundance of magenta colored berries, ‘Profusion’ is an excellent cultivar with violet colored berries in early fall, C. acuminata is the black beautyberry, it grows 8ft tall with ascending branches and produces shiny dark purple berries in autumn.
submitted by Karen Blackburn