Keyword: Callicarpa

I have a Callicarpa with light green leaves and very small purple berries in the winter. I don’t know what the one I have is called, but I would like to find one with dark green leaves and dark purple berries. How late in the season could I put a shrub like this in my yard in South Seattle?

Sometimes having two Callicarpa plants in one garden will enhance berry production. The variety that reportedly does best in the Pacific Northwest is Callicarpa bodinieri var. giraldii ‘Profusion.’

I wonder if the variety you currently have might be this one, Callicarpa dichotoma ‘Early Amethyst,’ which has paler purple berries that are fairly small.

I’d never heard of the cultivar ‘Pearl Glam’ before, but it appears to have darker (purple-tinged!) leaves and richly purple-colored fruit.

Portland-area gardener and author Ketzel Levine writes about several types of Callicarpa in Plant This! (Sasquatch Books, 2000). She says that Callicarpa bodinieri var. giraldii ‘Profusion’ is the only type of Callicarpa “that truly thrives in temperate climates” (such as ours). “For reasons […] no doubt related to the weather, and the absence of a long season of heat—none of the other species berry up quite as reliably.” She does say that Callicarpa americana‘s berries are three times larger than ‘Profusion’ and that Callicarpa dichotoma is a more graceful plant (“the most refined and shapeliest species in the genus. It has a horizontal, tiered habit,” but its berries are smaller. Callicarpa japonica has “metallic purple fruits, a color just a tad weirder than most, set off dramatically by autumn leaves often touched with pink.” There is a white-berried form of Callicarpa japonica–‘Leucocarpa.’

However, all of the other varieties (aside from ‘Profusion’) may not perform well in the Pacific Northwest.

You can plant more Callicarpa plants as you find them in nurseries or at plant sales. To be on the safe side, don’t plant in summer heat or you will have to pay very close attention to watering, and don’t plant when the ground is frozen or saturated. Spring or fall planting will work just fine.

Can you tell me the name of all those shrubs with tiny purple marble-like fruit that grow along the walkway by the Intramural Activities building at University of Washington? Are they related to pepper? They look like purple peppercorns! Are they edible?

This shrub, which goes mostly unnoticed until its dramatic fruit stands out in fall, is Callicarpa (beautyberry), most likely Callicarpa bodinieri var. giraldii ‘Profusion.’ Based on the size and shape of the fruit, I can see why you might think this plant could be related to pepper (the seasoning). Taxonomists have moved beautyberry around, but for now Callicarpa is in the mint family, Lamiaceae, while pepper (Piper) is in Piperaceae, and requires a warmer climate (subtropics or hotter) than ours.

Callicarpa is not listed in any of the usual sources on seriously toxic plants, but that does not mean its fruit is safe or tasty for human consumption. According to Julia Morton, a botanist and author of Wild Plants for Survival in South Florida, “the rank odor of the plant makes nibbling of beautyberry bunches on the stem unpleasant.” This article from the Cape Coral Daily Breeze (February 6, 2015) mentions that birds, deer, and squirrels enjoy the fruit. In my own garden, it is not the first choice of birds, but I have seen them trying it from time to time. Humans find the fruit mealy and insipid, according to the article, but that doesn’t stop avid foragers from attempting to make jelly from it.

If you grow Callicarpa, you may learn to appreciate its subtle flowers in spring, and the gently turning colors of its leaves in fall. Callicarpa americana also has terpenoids in its leaves that repel insects (mosquitoes, ticks, ants, and more).