Is that a pretty berry? No it's a Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)! The genus name, Callicarpa, means beautiful fruit in Greek. The flowers grow along the stems during early summer and are a pastel pink. The green berries ripen to that lovely color later in the summer and fall and are eaten by birds who are indispensable in seed dispersal. Racoons particularly like the berries and deer eat the leaves. Beautyberries are edible by humans when processed into jam and tea using lots of sugar. Recently it has been found that folklore claiming crushed Beautyberry leaves make a good mosquito repellent is correct. The leaves contain three compounds that have been identified as repellent to mosquitos. If you don't see berries on this plant right now be on the lookout for them along the trail.
Maybe not as pretty, but pretty smelling, is the Wax Myrtle (Morella cerifera) that you can see behind the sign. Crush a leaf in your fingers and smell the fresh scent. The scent comes from golden resin droplets (seen in the picture) produced on the underside of the leaf . Wax myrtle berries are high in fat and fiber and supply an important energy source for migrating birds in the spring. The bird's digestive tract is able to extract the energy from the waxy coating which also prepares the seed to germinate when it leaves the bird.
The colonists boiled the berries to release the wax which can then be made into Bayberry scented candles. It takes about 15 lbs of the tiny berries to make 1 pound of wax.
