The Beautyberry

(picture taken from creative commons and taken by conrado of wikimedia commons april 2005)


This beautiful bush is one that i've used for arrangements a few years in a row. I took some of those oxeye daisies and mixed them with the beauty berries. My mom bragged about how pretty they were.
I noticed that when I visited wikipedia's listing for the beauty berry shrub, It mentioned the birds love to eat these pretty things and then disperse the seeds elsewhere. Not a very pleasant thought of survival tactics and distribution, but practical in the wild.
The Beautyberry grows throughout the southeast stretching from Mississippi to the depths of Florida on up into the Carolinas. You can find them in dry open areas and the first thing you'll notice are those pretty berries. They are perennials and deciduous plants. The berries are eaten by racoons, opossums, wood rats, armadillos,
and if you see this bush, you'll certainly find something in it whether it be a little bird, or insect.
The Cherokee and Choctaw Indians used the beautyberries for sweat baths, malaria fevers, Rheumatism (arthritis), and dysentry, and other things. The bark was boiled to make a tea to relieve water retention in those that suffered from inflammation.
My grandmother used to call this bush "pepper plant" She may had called it that because of the funnel shaped leaves that looked alot like the pepper plant and the berries that favored the peppercorns when the berries dry. If you love to hike and love beautiful plants, the Beautyberry is definitely something to see!