{"id":9793,"date":"2025-06-16T08:51:20","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T12:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/?p=9793"},"modified":"2025-06-16T08:51:20","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T12:51:20","slug":"beautyberry-2025-06-15","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/beautyberry-2025-06-15.html","title":{"rendered":"Beautyberry 2025-06-15"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nBeautyberry fruits are setting: the flower petals are falling off and revealing the berries.\r\n

\r\nNot only are the flowers and berries pleasing violet colors,\r\nthe leaves repel insects and ticks, and you can make jelly and wine from beautyberries.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"[Beautyberry<\/a>\r\n
Beautyberry fruit setting, 2025:06:15 10:36:03<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nOnce the berries get some color, you’ll see why it’s called beautyberry.\r\nThey’re a pleasing violet color.\r\nThe flowers are an even lighter violet.\r\nAlso, the whole plant smells good.\r\n\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"[Color,<\/a>\r\n
Color, Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana), 2022-05-29<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nAnd no, not pokeberry: that has larger berries, which are redder, and pokeberry stems are purple.\r\nDon’t eat those; pokeberries are poisonous.\r\nYes, you can make poke salad from the leaves, but that’s before the stems turn purple.\r\nSo don’t confuse pokeberries and beautyberries.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"[Pokeberry<\/a>\r\n
Pokeberry (Phytolacca americana), 2018-08-05<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWhen beautyberries get completely ripe in October, pick them and eat them.\r\nThey have a subtle taste, but quite pleasing.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"[Berries<\/a>\r\n
Berries of Callicarpa americana, 2020-10-04<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nOr make them into jelly or wine.\r\nYou’ll be glad you did.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"[Beautyberries<\/a>\r\n
Beautyberries in a pot, 2021-09-10<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nWe have plenty of beautyberries left on the wild plants for birds in winter.\r\n

\r\nIf you rub the bottom of the leaf on you, it repels insects.\r\nWe do this for our dogs to keep the yellowflies off.\r\n

\r\nWhen the leaves alone aren’t enough, we make a preparation\r\nby crushing beautyberry leaves, soaking them in alcohol for a few days.\r\nVodka or even golden grain will do.\r\nDo NOT<\/em> use rubbing alcohol: dogs will lick the preparation.\r\n

\r\nDrain the liquid into a squirt bottle and add vegetable oil such as olive or coconut.\r\n

\r\nThe oil makes this concentrated beautyberry concoction stick,\r\nso it stays on the dogs’ ears (or your arms) and the bugs don’t bite.\r\n

\r\nIt also repels mosquitoes and ticks, more effectively than Deet.\r\nSee\r\n\r\n“Repellency of two terpenoid compounds isolated\r\nfrom Callicarpa americana (Lamiaceae) against Ixodes\r\nscapularis and Amblyomma americanum ticks,”<\/a>\r\nJohn F. Carroll \u00b7 Charles L. Cantrell \u00b7 Jerome A. Klun \u00b7\r\nMatthew Kramer, \r\nMarch 13, 2007,\r\nExperimental and Appled Acarology (2007) 41:215\u2013224, DOI 10.1007\/s10493-007-9057-2<\/a>.\r\nThe insect-repellant specific compounds in beautyberry leaves are\r\nCallicarpenal (13, 14, 15, 16-tetranor-3-cleroden-12-al) and intermedeol [(4S,5S,7R,10S)-eudesm-11-en-4-ol].\r\n

\r\nBeautyberry, Callicarpa americana<\/em>,\r\nis easily recognizable by its leaves, opposite, with saw toothed edges, oval shaped yet pointed, up to a few inches wide and somewhat longer.\r\nThe plants can grow eight feet tall.\r\n

\r\n\r\n\"[Beautyberry,<\/a>\r\n
Beautyberry, Callicarpa americana, 2025:06:15 10:35:58<\/a>\r\n<\/p>\r\n

\r\nIf you live in town, you may not have any of these,\r\nbecause developers scrape off all native plants before building houses.\r\nBut if you have any wild foliage, look for beautyberry.\r\n

\r\n -jsq\r\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beautyberry fruits are setting: the flower petals are falling off and revealing the berries. Not only are the flowers and berries pleasing violet colors, the leaves repel insects and ticks, and you can make jelly and wine from beautyberries. Beautyberry fruit setting, 2025:06:15 10:36:03 Once the berries get some color, you’ll see why it’s called […]","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[85,29,69,6,60],"tags":[2792,2808,24,245,3676,2770,3,23,2786,3677,5,2,1097,2760,2780,3423,25,3675],"class_list":["post-9793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arachnids","category-dogs","category-insects","category-okra-paradise-farms","category-plants","tag-arachnids","tag-beautyberry","tag-brown-dog","tag-callicarpa-americana","tag-callicarpenal","tag-dogs","tag-georgia","tag-gretchen-quarterman","tag-insects","tag-intermedeol","tag-john-s-quarterman","tag-lowndes-county","tag-mosquitoes","tag-okra-paradise-farms","tag-plants","tag-ticks","tag-yellow-dog","tag-yellowflies"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Gj0O-2xX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9793","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=9793"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9796,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9793\/revisions\/9796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.okraparadisefarms.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}