Firethorn berries are very reliably abundant.

Some vegetation excels at exploitation of wildlife. All sorts of flowers use color and floral form to attract pollinators. Many flowers rely on fragrance or flavorful nectar for this same purpose. Many flowers employ a combination of such techniques. After pollination, many species produce fruit to draw wildlife to disperse their seed. This includes winter berries.

Just as flowers appeal to particular pollinators, fruits appeal to particular consumers. Big fruits appeal to animals who eat them, perhaps sloppily, but drop the seed within. Acorns and nuts appeal to squirrels who bury more than they can retrieve. Winter berries appeal to birds who do not digest the seed within. The birds deposit the seed wherever they go.

It is a mutually beneficial arrangement. Birds, whether migratory or overwintering, eat as many berries as they want. Vegetation that provides winter berries benefits from efficient dispersal of its seed. Naturally, such fruits ripen as birds are fattening up for winter. They are brightly colorful to attract hungry birds. They are small enough for birds to eat whole.

This is convenient for home gardening. It provides some color after defoliation of autumn foliar color, and prior to spring bloom. It is actually more appealing where cooler weather accelerates defoliation. Also, such color contrasts more prominently against snow within a stark landscape. Within any climate though, such berries last only until birds find them.

For some, birds and squirrels who come for winter berries are welcome. Some prefer the color of winter berries. Ultimately though, the wildlife determines how long winter berries linger. Anyone can cultivate vegetation that produces winter berries. Very few can protect such fruit from wildlife that craves it. Berries rarely last long enough to rot through winter.

Firethorn produces the most colorful winter berries. Various cotoneasters are similar, but with somewhat subdued rusty red color. Toyon develops larger but looser clusters of fruit. English hawthorn fruit resembles that of cotoneaster, but on bare stems. Hollies produce only a few berries. They are dioecious, so need male pollinators which are rarely nearby.

9 thoughts on “Berries Get Colorful For Winter”

  1. We have Crataegus prunifolia hanging over the fence from next door and blackbirds are attracted to the fruits. How many they eat is hard to tell, most of them end up on the ground below the tree and the birds never touch them there. I wonder if the fruits are just a bit big for our blackbirds and co-evolved with some other, American, bird, in the frame. A lot of the seeds germinate beneath the tree and if left would produce a thicket, which we see with our native hawthorn. Perhaps it’s a two pronged strategy.

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    1. It may be a cultivar that is unnaturally productive, or it may be more productive in cultivation, or both. With so many other berries within nearby gardens, the birds may find more fruit than they can eat. It is difficult to know why the birds do not eat all the berries. Even in the wild, they are not required to do so.

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  2. What a beautiful post about winter berries from the shrub’s point of view. I will probably steal your idea, as I usually write about winter berries from the birds’ point of view. But the shrub is the benefactor here, just as perennials are the benefactors when we plant a ‘pollinator garden’ purportedly for the butterflies and bees, but really for ourselves. Great photo. I can only wish that our firethorn was that prolific this year. I went to photograph it on Saturday morning and discovered most of its berries already consumed, but we have had heavy traffic of flocks of birds on the move south in recent weeks. I have a couple of rooted sticks said to be Hawthorn, the runts of a shipment from Arbor Day last spring, and you have inspired me to possibly take better care of them over the winter, in anticipation of berries in years to come.

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    1. I sometimes write from a less popular point of view. It surprises people at times, and can be rather shocking. People do not seem to understand that vegetation works for a living like the rest of us do, and some of it can be exploitative, aggressive, violent and even mean. When I explain that Washingtonia filifera is not only combustible, but intentionally burns hot enough to incinerate the vegetation that would otherwise compete with their progeny, no one wants to believe me. Nature is not all idyllic.

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      3. Popularity only counts in the plant world when you’re trying to attract pollinators or something to spread your seeds. 😉 I prefer to be realistic about the plant world and realize that plants are as competitive and survival oriented as animals and humans. It is the mycelium that teach us networking and collaboration….

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      4. Some of the most popular cultivars are bad for pollinators and wildlife. For example, bees can die of exhaustion while trying to find pollen on cultivars of formerly familiar flowers that no longer produce pollen. Some of such flowers are actually popular within the fad gardens that are supposed to attract pollinators! They may attract pollinators, but are not benefiting them.

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