Beautyberry
Callicarpa americana
Beautyberry or American Beautyberry is one of our most drought tolerant shrubs that provides colorful fruit for most of the year. It is naturally found on the back of dunes, in scrub, pinelands and oak hammocks.
Beautyberry will tolerate moderate shade to full sun and average soil. In North Florida these plants are killed to the ground by frost, yet come up as multiple canes in the spring. Cut them to the ground in February to mimic this and they will be low and full.
Combine Beautyberry with Wild Coffee, Snowberry, Rough Plant and Marlberry under an oak tree. Or, with Saw Palmetto, Horizontal Cocoplum, Coralbean, Coontie, Beach Creeper, Sand Cordgrass and Myrsine around a group of Slash Pines.
The berries are not poisonous, yet not tasty either. In fact, they taste a bit like cleaning fluid. They mainly provide moisture to birds in the dry part of spring. During migration, the fruit will be cleaned off the branches. Squirrels like them too.
Rub the leaves in your palm and apply the juices to your arms and legs for an insect repellent that really does keep mosquitoes away. I have tried this while working outside during the summer and found relief for a half hour or more.
There are white fruiting forms of Beautyberry, but I have found that the parent plants usually come from Texas and don’t like our climate.