Category Archives: Silviculture

Loblolly pine pollen

A loblolly pine (Pinus taeda) candling with pollen:

We have lots of these, but not many with limbs like this so close to the ground. This one is in a cemetary with no close competitors, so it spread out more than up.

Pictures by John S. Quarterman, 27 April 2011, in the Revolutionary War Cemetery in Louisville, Georgia.

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Corn snake

Gretchen was very amused to see me do the snake dance. This corn snake was lying in the path at the edge of the field, and I almost stepped on it. Probably it was sunning itself to get warm.

It’s harmless, except to small rodents that live in corn fields. Elaphe guttata is a constrictor. This one was 3 or 4 feet long. They’re native to the U.S. southeast from New Jersey to Texas. I did not know until that day that corn snakes can climb trees.

Here he is stretched out: Continue reading →

French mulberry, or dwarf mulberry, becomes beautyberry

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. And it turns out that beautyberry was mentioned in books before 1800, it was just mentioned as dwarf mulberry:

Further, William Bartram did mention it in his Travels of 1791, as French mulberry. Curiously, even though Google books does have Bartram’s book, ngrams doesn’t seem to show French mulberry for that date, but does show American mulberry. Even more curious, William Bartram’s father, John Bartram, corresponded with Linnaeus, the founder of modern botanical terminology.

The currently most popular name is beautyberry, which turns out to be related to the scientific genus name, Callicarpa: Greek kalli means beautiful, and Karpos means fruit.

The plant has all sorts of uses: Continue reading →

Preserving beautyberry

Here are some freshly canned jars of beautyberry:

So first you pick and cook the beautyberries, then you strain them and cook them again, and finally, you can them in jars, as you can see Gretchen doing in the video linked through the little picture to the right.

Here is one batch of beautyberry jelly jars:

Pictures and preserving of beautyberry, Callicarpa americana, by Gretchen Quarte rman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 17 Oct 2010

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Straining beautyberry

So far we’ve picked and cook the beautyberries. Now we want to pour it through a strainer to get out any remaining stems or skins. That’s why it’s going to be jelly, not jam. This strainer is an old pillow case.

First get it nice and bubbling.

Then strain it as in the first picture above. Then cook it some more and add sugar.

To be continued….

Straining and cooking of Callicarpa americana by Gretchen Quarterman, Lowndes County, Georgia, 16 Oct 2010.

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