Tom, thanks for your response! You may want to remove your personal information from this public response thread. Junk mail, junk calls, junk texts... just avoid the problem.
I haven't seen tipsy robins in our yard, but for sure none of the berries last long. I don't know how anybody has them in "winter arrangements" unless they snip the branches the moment the berries turn purple!
The thing that surprised me most about beautyberries was how tiny they are. All the catalog photos show closeups of these lovely bunches of berries, looking like bright purple blueberry clusters... well, of course, they want you to buy one! They do add a pretty, if brief, haze of color. If the berries remained past leaf-drop, they'd be striking. But I'm happy to provide them for the birds!
If anybody is interested in adding them, seems like they're easily propagated from seed or from softwood cuttings (the still-bendy tips, probably best to try in spring). So if you know somebody with one, you're set. If you go to a nursery, check to be sure you are buying Callicarpa americana (American beautyberry), as a couple other species are non-native and may be invasive. Proven Winners has a cross of C. americana and a Korean species called 'Purple Pearls', and I'm not sure if it's problematic or not. The native one is also a host plant for a couple of butterflies, I believe.
It does well in partial shade, and I like it as a tall "understory" shrub.
