Guest Commentary: Red berries in the landscape include the good, bad and bug-ly

These red berry-producing plants grow throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed and attract wildlife.”

Kathleen Gaskell is a copy editor at the Bay Journal, where this was first published as the Chesapeake Challenge.

Nature decks trees and bushes with red for winter. These red berry-producing plants grow throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed and attract wildlife.

Can you match them with their descriptions? Answers are below. Note: Despite their enticing names and appearance, some of these berries are toxic to humans.

• American holly (Ilex opaca).
• American wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens).
• Red chokeberry (Aronia arbutifolia).
• Common winterberry (Ilex verticillata)
• High-bush cranberry (Viburnum trilobum).

1. Birds eat the bright red bunches of berries found on this bush throughout winter. In the wild, it grows near swamps and streams but can adapt to dry sites. Its purple-green leaves, which turn black after the first frost, inspire one of its other names: black alder.
2. Only female plants of this species bear the bright-red berries prized by songbirds, game birds, deer and squirrels. Many also find cover from predators among its prickly leaves. In the wild, this understory tree is found in shady woods and along streams and riverbanks.
3. The fruit of this low-growing shrub is actually a capsule that looks like a berry with a puckered bottom. The berries are eaten by wild turkey, ruffed grouse, deer, bears, mice, red squirrels and red foxes. They are a favorite of the eastern chipmunk. The shrub grows best in the acidic soils of conifer forests.
4. The red or orange berrylike fruit is really a drupe, a fleshy fruit surrounding a single stonelike seed. Cedar waxwings, robins, ruffed grouse, deer, raccoons, chipmunks, squirrels and rabbits eat its fruit. Although usually found in wetlands, it also grows in moist woods, at forest edges and along streams.
5. The dangling crimson berries of this shrub are initially so astringent that deer won’t eat them unless they are starving. Birds wait until winter, after the berries have fermented and sweetened, before eating them. It grows in a variety of wet habitats as well as dry, sandy soil and mixed hardwood forests.

More about the color red

Better to eat red than turn red: Studies suggest that eating food containing anthocyanin — red, purple or blue fruit, as well as red onions and red beans — may potentially protect skin from ultraviolet damage.

Taking the red ribbon (twice): Red is the second most popular color after blue. It is right behind yellow as the most visible hue in the color spectrum.

Red alert!: Poisonous or venomous plants and animals are often red or have bright-red markings. Examples in the Chesapeake Bay watershed include the black widow spider’s hourglass, the fly agaric mushroom’s red-and-white-spotted cap and the poisonous skin of red salamanders. The coloring may serve as a warning to predators to back off.

Red rainbows: When the sun is low in the sky, light must travel farther through the atmosphere, causing the cooler colors, which have shorter wavelengths, to scatter. As a result, we enjoy brilliant sunrises and sunsets. Red, which has the longest wavelength, is the last to disappear and, if rain is in the air at this moment, you might be able to see a rare phenomenon: the red rainbow. Turn to the direction opposite the sun to increase your chance of seeing it.

The bug-ly truth: There are many dyes derived from red plants, such as those that use elderberry, sumac and beet. Cochineal, or carmine, and kermes are red dyes made from the pulverized bodies of insects, used in foods and cosmetics.

Answers

1. Common winterberry
2. American holly
3. American wintergreen
4. High-bush cranberry
5. Red chokeberry