Have you ever seen a beautyberry bush? I had seen pictures but I had never seen one until a couple of weeks ago. I least I had never seen one covered in berries.

We were riding horses on some back roads and there on the side of the road I saw something that was a deep purple-pink color. Well I had to go investigate, part of the fun of horseback riding to me is spotting wildflowers and native plants. As soon as I got close enough, I knew what it was.

Beautyberries botanical name is callicarpa americana. They are native to the south, prefer light shade and can grow to 8 feet tall. There is another beautyberry variety that is not native called callicarpa dichotoma it is smaller and supposed to be a nicer looking shrub.

In the book Passalong Plants, Steve Bender says beautyberry ,callicarpa americana, is an awesome sight in the fall but you don’t see it in many gardens because of , ” a lanky, unkempt growth habit, in which stems arch out in every conceivable direction, like a baby strapped in a shopping cart reaching for groceries that his mother passes by. Its leaves behave in a similarly unruly fashion, pointing every which way on the stem. They suggest the hair of an unfortunate soul who accidentally dropped an electric shaver into the bathwater.”

His description sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it. Well all I can say is I saw beautyberry, but I cannot confirm or deny his description because I was so taken by the beautiful sight of the berries, I honestly don’t know what the rest of the shrub looked like.