Beauty Berries

Aren't these gorgeous? They are Beauty Berries, and they grow in woodsy areas of Houston. They are also called Turkey Berries in some *rude* areas of the United States.

Beauty Berries surprised me when I first moved to Houston. I had never seen anything like them before, especially the true fuchsia color of the berry. Then I saw the "wands" being sold in florist shops, the leaves having been removed. What a visual treat.

The berries range in size from baby pea size to big pea size. Just to give you an idea of what you are seeing here size wise.

The Beauty Berry has small white flowers in the spring time, and the leaves turn golden in late autumn. Pretty clever, dressing up for the seasons.

(Note on Blogger angst: I created a mirror blog, where I can use my old tools, and then copy the html into this blog, which *suddenly* is accessable via the old URL http://jillthinksdifferent.blogspot.com/ again.
And a few of my archives are back. Come on, Googleplex, motivate your Blogger team and give me back my archives, and Picasa upload capabilities!)

As the season progresses the berries get deeper and deeper in color. The last picture is how they look in September.