This is a great time of year to find plants and identify things that get lost in all of the green of Greene County. Over the next few days, I'll be showing you some of the wild autumn berries that we find out here. Some will be familiar; some won't. It's tricky doing a search for weed fruit. The vast majority of search sites want to know the leaves and flowers. That's a problem in November when there are no more flowers and most of the leaves were down. I was lucky that the leaves were still on this plant. That helped a lot.
Here is a great site for identifying wild berries, etc.: www.wildflower.org. It's the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center out of Texas. Fabulous database with pics.
[Note: Avoid any eHow or Ask.com site. They're worthless.]
This plant was a brand new one for me. I'd never noticed anything like it before and the irregularity of the berries really surprised me. [We see that type of thing with blackberries that have been infected by a rust [fungus], but never a fall berry like this.] Plus, it was decidedly pink - not the cranberry, fire engine red that we normally see out here.
This is Symphoricarpos orbiculatus. It's common names are coralberry, Indian currant and buckbrush. It is mildly poisonous, so don't try eating one. It's in the honeysuckle family and the LBJ Wildflower Center recommends it as a great plant for naturalizing.
Here's a follow-up search hint: Once you think you've identified your plant, go back and do another Google [or whatever] photo search using the name you just found for the plant. That'll help pull up more photos and information so you can verify the identification and also maybe find out exactly what species you might have.
