{"id":355,"date":"2010-12-28T04:35:21","date_gmt":"2010-12-28T09:35:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/french-mulberry-or-dwarf-mulberry-becomes-beautyberry.html"},"modified":"2010-12-28T04:35:21","modified_gmt":"2010-12-28T09:35:21","slug":"french-mulberry-or-dwarf-mulberry-becomes-beautyberry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/french-mulberry-or-dwarf-mulberry-becomes-beautyberry.html","title":{"rendered":"French mulberry, or dwarf mulberry, becomes beautyberry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Due to discussion on facebook with Rihard Sexton after
\nthe previous post<\/a>,
\nI dug around a bit,
\nand discovered that beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is also known as
\n
\ndwarf mulberry, French mulberry,<\/a>
\nand Spanish mulberry, sow berry, and sour berry<\/a>.
\nThat last is especially a misnomer, because its berries are not sour,
\nthey taste like flowers.
\nAnd it turns out that beautyberry was mentioned in books before 1800,
\nit was just mentioned as dwarf mulberry:<\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
\n<\/a>
\nFurther, William Bartram did mention it in his Travels of 1791, as
\n
\nFrench mulberry<\/a>.
\nCuriously, even though Google books does have Bartram’s book,
\nngrams doesn’t seem to show French mulberry for that date,
\nbut does show American mulberry.
\nEven more curious, William Bartram’s father, John Bartram,
\ncorresponded with Linnaeus, the founder of modern
\nbotanical terminology.<\/a><\/p>\n

\nThe currently most popular name is beautyberry, which turns out to
\nbe related to the scientific genus name, Callicarpa: Greek kalli
\nmeans beautiful, and Karpos means fruit.<\/p>\n

\nThe plant has all sorts of uses:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n


\n<\/a>
\nNative Americans had many uses for beautberry, both internally and
\nexternally. According to Taylor (1940), Native Americans used beautyberry
\nexternally as a steam and topical application. All parts of the plants
\nwere used for different purposes Roots, leaves, and berries became the
\nbase for various teas and decoctions created to treated a wide variety
\nof common aliments. It was also used for ceremonial activities.<\/p>\n

\nCrushed berries were rubbed on the skin to repel mosquitoes. In modern
\ntimes, farmers and ranchers in Texas applied the berries and leaves to
\ncattle and horses in order to repel flies. A study by Kinghorn (2008)
\nconfirms that Callicarpa Americana does have mosquito bite deterrent
\nactions. Callicarpa leaves contain terpenoids that repel fire ants
\naccording to a recent study by Chen, Cantrell, Duke, and Allen (2008).<\/p>\n

\nOther ethno botanical uses: Native Americans used Callicarpa americana
\nfor ceremonial uses. William Bartram recorded Native Americans cultivating
\nCallicarpa americana in Georgia and Northeast Florida during his
\nbotanical expeditions of the 1740s. The plant has been use to produce
\ndye and fish poison. Austin documents that traditional uses of related
\nMexican species include making of rafters and supports for bean vines.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Forester Wayne Bell of Moultrie pointed it out to me,
\nhe remarked that it was supposed to repel mosquitoes.<\/p>\n

\nSome references say “the shrub, which can grow up to 6 feet”<\/a>
\nobviously haven’t seen the ones in our woods, which are well over 10 feet tall.<\/p>\n

\n-jsq<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Due to discussion on facebook with Rihard Sexton after the previous post, I dug around a bit, and discovered that beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is also known as dwarf mulberry, French mulberry, and Spanish mulberry, sow berry, and sour berry. That last is especially a misnomer, because its berries are not sour, they taste like flowers. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[207,65,66,42,44,10,60,36],"tags":[1092,2808,2783,245,1085,1098,1086,3,320,1093,1094,2,1097,1096,1099,1089,1088,1087,1091,1095,1090],"class_list":["post-355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beautyberry","category-books","category-botany","category-food-and-drink","category-health","category-history","category-plants","category-silviculture","tag-1092","tag-beautyberry","tag-botany","tag-callicarpa-americana","tag-dwarf-mulberry","tag-florida","tag-french-mulberry","tag-georgia","tag-google","tag-john-bartram","tag-linnaeus","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mosquitoes","tag-moultrie","tag-ngrams","tag-sour-berry","tag-sow-berry","tag-spanish-mulberry","tag-travels","tag-wayne-bell","tag-william-bartram"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}