BEAUTYBERRY
My daughter had a teacher once who was in love with the color purple. She wore purple clothes, decorated her classroom with purple objects and gave out “purple owl” stickers to students who excelled in any way. As far as I know, her prose was never purple, but sometimes her ink was. I am not sure that the boys in the class appreciated her passion for purple, but many of the girls shared it. Purple seems to inspire devotion in females under eighteen. Sometimes the purple phase lasts a lifetime.
Even gardeners who are not head over heels in love with purple probably have patches of the color in their gardens. Purple and blue-purple flowers abound in just about every season, from the first spring violets to the last fall mums. There are plenty of purple-flowered shrubs as well, but only one common shrub has pale purple berries–callicarpa or beautyberry.
Callicarpas are at their most distinctive in September and October because the fruit clusters, which form in the leaf axils, where leaves and stems join, are an unusual amethyst shade with a waxy coating. The berries are highly visible against the dark green leaves and, depending on the weather conditions, will even persist after the leaves have dropped off for the winter.
Lovely as the plants are, they are not especially plentiful in my neck of the woods. I have walked all over my small town and have only seen one callicarpa in a front yard. Of course, I live in the suburbs and we tend to hide anything that is unusual, illicit or disreputable in the back. For all I know, there may be hundreds of callicarpas lurking in the spaces between back porches and garages, but somehow I think not.
It’s too bad, because as a group, the callicarpas have many virtues. Most species are native to east and Southeast Asia, with a few occurring in North and Central America. The shrubs tend to be medium-sized–four to six feet tall at maturity–though some, like C. bodinieri and C. longifolia, can grow much taller. For years botanists grouped callicarpa into the verbena family, but new DNA research has resulted in them being moved into the mint or Labiatae family. The relationship makes sense when you look at the plants or rub the leaves between your fingers. Like mints, callicarpas have aromatic, opposed leaves, roughly oval-shaped, and often with toothed edges. The small flowers appear in clusters and are white to pinkish purple.
Here in the United States, the most common beautyberry cultivars in commerce are varieties of Callicarpa dichotoma, a species that is native to Asia. One of the more popular dichotomas is ‘Early Amethyst’, which produces its showy berries in August. There are other dichotoma cultivars on the market, including varieties with white fruit or variegated leaves, but they are not readily available.
Callicarpa japonica is not as well known, but I saw some of the shrubs recently at the “Kiku” Japanese chrysanthemum show at the New York Botanical Garden. Even though the callicarpas joined several other Japanese plants in playing the role of backdrop for the chrysanthemum displays, the purple berries stood out.
Thomas Jefferson grew Callicarpa americana, which is native to the southern United States. He was sufficiently enamored of the plant to send a specimen across the Atlantic to his French friend and fellow gardener, the Comtesse Noailles de Tessé, an aunt of the Marquis de Lafayette. This is particularly interesting in light of the fact that this particular callicarpa is sometimes also known by the name “French Mulberry”. Since it is neither French nor related to the mulberry, the nickname is curious. At any rate, it is distinguished by its tall stature and long, arching branches. Lovers of native plants can use it to replace showy non-native species, as it has value as a habitat plant as well as an ornamental. Some sources also suggest that various parts of the plant contain chemicals capable of repelling mosquitoes and other insects. The principal shortcoming of Callicarpa americana is that it may not be hardy in cold winter climates north of USDA Zone 7. However, the climate change that has taken place in recent decades may make it possible to raise the species successfully in Zone 6.
If you would rather be on the safe side, try Bodinieri’s beautyberry, Callicarpa bodinieri. It is a native of Central China, with the characteristic light purple fruits, but with leaves that are somewhat wider than those of the dichotoma species. It can survive cold winter temperatures down to -10 F, but should be cut way back in the early spring. Nurseries and garden centers sometimes carry the ‘Profusion’ variety.
I can’t really imagine an all-purple garden, but somewhere somebody probably has one. That person–who might even be my daughter’s former teacher–almost certainly has a beautyberry bush. Many of the rest of us should invest in one as well. You can order yours from Forestfarm, 990 Tetherow Road, Williams, OR 97544; (541) 846-7269; www.forestfarm.com. Catalog $5.00.