Today I found some type of bush with very pretty purplish berries on it. It reminds me of a beautyberry shrub but I'm not sure. I picked a few berries from it. The first picture is blurry but its a picture of the whole plant.

Hard to tell from the first pic, but it kind of looks like Callicarpa americana, American Beautyberry

American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)

Thanks again Jay. I found a few seeds in the berries so I'm going to plant them in my garden.

Like Jay, my first thought was that the berries look like Callicarpa americana (Beautyberry) too but I can't really see the branches in the photo real well to be sure. Good idea about planting them to see what you get! Once leaves appear, post a few more pic's!

Sorry about the blurry picture. I should have had my camera on flash. Do you know if beautyberry seeds need cold stratification? Hopefully if they sprout I'll be able to take better pictures. I'm slowly switching over to drought tolerant and native plants.

I found a US Forest Service page that stated this "Each drupe contains four small seeds that germinate
without scarification or stratification, although
germination can be slow. If seeds are sown in the fall,
germination the following spring may be excellent "

Thanks Jay. I'll remove them from the fridge.

TexasPlumeria87:

I'm going to diverge from the others here. That looks more like a Coralberry (Symphoricarpos orbiculatus) to me, especially the stems in the image provided. Of course, more/clearer photos will always help in the most positive ID.

I don't have any further particular information on germinating seeds, but I do know that Coralberry is incredibly easy to divide - since it is a small colonizing shrub. You could simply dig up a stem with its attendant roots, and have a new plant.

I think you may be right John. I googled Coralberry and it definitely looks like it. When I go to the park again I'll take a clearer picture. I like the fact that its a colonizing shrub. I took some berries from it because I was afraid of digging up a plant.

I was not familiar with coralberry before, but after looking it up, I agree that it does look like a better guess than Beautyberry. They does look very much alike at first glance.

This is the first time I've ever heard of coralberry. They do look very similar. I read that it can tolerate dry shade, which is great because most of my garden is dry shade.