During our hike in southeast Oklahoma’s Beavers Bend State Park last week, we saw some beautiful purple colored berries. Consulting my iNaturlists App later on it looked like they were American Beauty Berries. They are native to the area and apparently everybody but me knew all about them.
They are also known as the French Mulberry. Deer eat the leaves, birds eat the fruit. Humans can eat the berries which appear in late Summer or early Fall. A few my instagram and facebook followers report they have made jam and jelly with the berries. They reportedly have a slight medicinal taste. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center reports that Native Americans made tea out of the berries, foliage, and roots to treat various ailments. The Foraging Texas web site has other information about the plant and its berries including a recipe to make jelly out of them. (If you are going to do that, please do not pick your berries at a State Park or any other similar place.)
I doubt that I will be eating any but I love the soft purple color. I think I have seen them on Tulsa’s Turkey Mountain Urban Wilderness. They stand out among the various shades of green.
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Beauty berries ..what a perfect name. I’d try eating one or two if someone I trusted told me they were edible. Here in Oregon, we have two berry bushes that grow wild like that and are barely edible …(safe but bitter)…the Oregon Grape and Salal berries. I made jam from both of those the first couple of years we lived in Oregon (years ago now) , along with the ubiquitous and invasive wild blackberries. I still pick a few blackberries now and then, but wouldn’t even know how to start on jam making again (or want to).
Hello,
They are pretty berries, I have always love finding them and their pretty color. Maybe the birds will enjoy eating the berries. Enjoy your day, have a great new week! PS, thanks for the comment on my blog.
The purple berry is so pretty.
How berry beautiful! 😉
The berries are a fantastic colour and I would probably leave them to be admired .
Isn’t it wonderful to make a new discovery such as this? It is the kind of thing that warms my heart to no end!!! A beautiful fruit. (And thanks for reminding people not to pick them in state parks or other shared places!)
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