How to use American beautyberries as food and mosquito repellent

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American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is an attractive, common landscape shrub native to the Southeastern United States. It produces edible berries that can be turned into flavorful recipes as well as leaves that can be used as an effective mosquito repellent. Below, you’ll find out how to ID, grow, and use American beautyberries!

 AN INTRODUCTION TO BEAUTYBERRIES (CALLICARPA SPP.)

Beautyberries are an attractive and useful shrub that produce small berry clusters which ripen in fall and remain on the plant for months thereafter. Unique beautyberries species grow natively around the world.

Since we live in South Carolina, our favorite beautyberry is our native species, American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana). We use this plant for food, mosquito repellent, edible landscaping, and its many benefits for native wildlife.

Pregnant Tyrant picking ripe American beautyberries.

A closer look at American beautyberries

Let’s take a deeper dive into American beautyberries (Callicarpa americana):

Geographic range:

American beautyberries are native to the southeastern United States from Texas to Florida and as far north as Virginia. Its range also extends into the Caribbean and northern Mexico.

Habitat:

American beautyberries are robust plants that can survive in a wide range of environmental conditions. We’ve seen the plants growing wild in our area (Upstate South Carolina) in forest, field, and edge habitats alike.

Wildlife benefits:

American beautyberry plants provide numerous wildlife benefits:

The flowers provide pollen and nectar for native bees and butterflies.
It’s a host plant for multiple pollinators, including spring azure butterflies (Celastrina ladon) and snowberry clearwing moths (Hemaris diffinis).
It creates habitat for bird nests as well as native insects like Carolina mantises. We often see mantis egg casings/oothecae stuck to beautyberry branches after the leaves drop.
The ripe fruit is a nutrient-rich food for numerous bird and mammal species during winter when other fruit is scarce.

Beautyberry leaves can be popular with deer, so you may need to take extra precautions to keep deer out if you’re growing beautyberry plants in your yard.

Ornamental landscape plant:

American beautyberries are also a very popular landscape plant due to:

how easy they are to grow (as most native plants are),
their compact growth habit which requires no pruning, and
their attractive, colorful berries.

Since their showy berry clusters remain on the plant even after the leaves have dropped, American beautyberries make an attractive winter garden plant in an ornamental landscape.

Unfortunately, we also see a lot of non-native beautyberry species in commercial and home landscapes. Some of these, like Asian beautyberries, are considered invasive species and can also hybridize with native beautyberries, thereby creating genetic pollution.

One of the non-native Asian beautyberry species beginning to ripen from green to purple in late summer in South Carolina. How to tell this isn’t an American beautyberry? The easiest way: more loosely formed fruit clusters on small stems (called peduncles) that dangle off the main branch. Long weeping branches (rather than upright branches) also help make the ID.

Since beautyberries are a popular landscape plant, the easiest way to forage them is to find them growing at local parks rather than in the wild. If you forage them from a public space, try to avoid spots where pesticides have been used.

2. AMERICAN BEAUTYBERRIES VERSUS ASIAN BEAUTYBERRIES: HOW TO TELL THEM APART

As a supplement to the video above, here are three ways you can tell the difference between native American beautyberries (Callicarpa americana) and non-native Asian beautyberries (C. bodinieri and C. japonica)

1. Asian beautyberries ripen earlier.

American beautyberries *fully ripen later than non-native beautyberries. (*Fully ripen meaning all fruit on the plant is deep lilac in color. There are also bred white beautyberry varieties such as ‘Alba’, so this distinction does not apply there.)

For instance, some Asian beautyberry plants we forage have fully ripe berries by late August-early September, whereas American beautyberries won’t fully ripen until October.

2. Asian beautyberries have longer, clearly visible peduncles.

Asian beautyberries feature loosely formed berry clusters on peduncles/stems that visibly dangle off of the main branch. However, American beautyberries form tight clusters wrapped right around the branch (no visible peduncles).

This feature is the easiest way to distinguish between native and non-native beautyberries when they’re fruiting!

American beautberry (left) vs Asian beautyberry (right). Note the dense fruit clusters and location of the fruit clusters right around the main branch on the American beautyberry. Asian beautyberries have smaller clusters that form on visible peduncles. Also, the American beautyberry’s branches are much more upright compared to the weeping branches of Asian beautyberries.

3. Plant size, leaf size, and growth habit.

American beautyberry plants are larger and more upright than Asian species, which tend to be shorter with deeply arching, weeping branches. American beautyberry leaves also tend to be longer than Asian species (3-6″ inches long vs. 1-3″ long), but this is not always the case.

There are numerous beautyberry species, cultivars, and hybrids, so each of these distinctions may not always hold true.

Are beautyberries edible? What do they taste like?

Yes, beautyberries are edible. Raw fresh beautyberries are mildly sweet and have spicy notes somewhat similar to Asian five spice.

The fruit pulp is more pithy than juicy. Each berry contains a few small seeds which can also be eaten.

We’ve also found that different beautyberry species have slightly different flavors:

American beautyberries are generally much more intensely spice-flavored and less sweet than Asian beautyberries. Due to their more intense flavor, we prefer American beautyberries for recipes.
Asian beautyberries are generally much less intensely spice flavored but more sweet than American beautyberries. Arguably, this might make them better for fresh eating, but not as good for cooked recipes.

Beautyberries aren’t a fruit you’ll want to eat by the handful like blackberries or strawberries, but they can be used to make a number of very tasty recipes, which we’ll detail below.

Berry production: What’s the per-plant yield?

A single mature American beautyberry plant can produce 3-5 pounds of fruit in a growing season.

When do you harvest American beautyberries?

American beautyberries are best harvested from fall through early winter. The entire fruit cluster should be fully purple/lilac in color when harvesting. Unripe fruit or brown/freeze-damaged fruit should be avoided.

Beautyberries’ flavor is best after nighttime temperatures start dipping into the low 40s and upper 30s, but before they’ve experiencing multiple deep freezes.

When do American beautyberries flower?

From late spring through early summer, beautyberry plants are covered in small clusters of inconspicuous flowers ranging in color from white to pink to purple. The flowers are quite popular with native pollinators (especially native bees), so you’ll enjoy a pleasant humming sound if you approach a beautyberry plant in flower!

Beautyberry flowers in early July in Ag Zone 7b.

3. HOW TO GROW AND HARVEST AMERICAN BEAUTYBERRIES

American beautyberries are an attractive, low-maintenance shrub that’s ideal for growing in Southeastern landscapes.

Here’s the basic information you need to know before growing them:

Hardiness zones:

Grows from Ag Zones 7-11.

Size and growth habit:

American beautyberry shrubs feature a compact growth habit, maturing to about 5′ tall x 5′ wide. In ideal conditions (full sun, rich moist soil), they can grow much larger. The largest American beautyberry plant we’ve seen is about 8’ tall x 8’ wide.

Spacing and placement recommendations:

We recommend growing American beautyberries spaced about 5’ apart, so they mature into a snug hedge. We also recommend growing them as a second or third row plant in an edible home landscape, with smaller plants in front.

Light requirements:

American beautyberry plants prefer full sun and will produce the most berries when grown in full sun. They can tolerate partial shade, but will not grow well in full shade.

Soil types:

American beautyberry plants will grow best in well-draining, rich soils with high organic matter. However, they are robust plants that can tolerant a wide range of soil types including clay, sand, and loam. Likewise, they can also tolerate a wide range of soil pH levels, from 4.8 to 7.0.

Recommendation: Maintain a 3-5″ layer of wood chips/mulch on the soil surface around your American beautyberry plants to help maintain ideal soil conditions and biological fertility.

Water, temperature, and humidity requirements

Young 1-3 year old American beautyberry plants will benefit from receiving 1” of water per week during summer via rain or irrigation. However, mature 3+ year old established plants have exceptional drought and heat tolerance, and will likely require no supplemental irrigation, even in summer.

Yes, we’ve seen American beautyberry plants thrive through an intense South Carolina summer drought. We had almost no rain for 8 weeks, and temperatures stayed in the low to mid 90s throughout. Nevertheless, mature American beautyberry plants survived with no irrigation — and still produced berries, albeit fewer and smaller berries than normal.

Conversely, since American beautyberries are native to the Southeast, they’re also very tolerant of heavy rainfalls and hot humid conditions.

The only thing American beautyberries can’t tolerate is extreme cold, hence why they have trouble growing below Zone 7. If winter temps regularly dip into the single digits or below, the plants could be killed — especially young plants, which are more vulnerable.

Anyone in colder zones intent on growing American beautyberries may want to grow them in pots, so the plants can be moved to provide winter protection.

Lifespan:

In ideal conditions, an American beautyberry plant can live for 30 or more years.

Where to get your first American beautyberry plants

Get beautyberry plants from a local nursery if you want to start with larger plants. Just make sure the nursery is 100% certain they’re carrying American beautyberries (Callicarpa americana), not a non-native species.

You can also start your own American beautyberry plants by growing them from stem cuttings or seed. Here’s how:

How to grow American beautyberries from cuttings:

1. Remove 4-6″ cuttings from the tops of mature beautyberry branches in the spring shortly after the plants have broken dormancy. Do this before they’ve gone into reproductive mode, aka started flowering.

2. Remove bottom leaves and dip bottom 3″ of cuttings in rooting hormone.

3. Transplant to small containers filled with damp potting soil.

4. For first 2 weeks, keep cutting(s) outdoors in shaded spot and make sure the soil remains damp, but not wet. Mist the plants once per day.