Callicarpa mollis

Callicarpa mollis is a deciduous shrub of the mint family (Lamiaceae, formerly Verbenaceae) native to East Asia, including China, Japan and Korea, where it grows in thickets, forest margins, hillsides and along streams. It typically reaches 1-2 m in height, with softly hairy young branches and opposite, ovate to elliptic leaves bearing toothed margins and a covering of fine hairs that give the foliage a soft texture. Small pink to pale purple flowers are borne in dense, branched axillary cymes in summer, each with a short tubular corolla and protruding stamens. These are followed in autumn by clusters of small, rounded, violet to purple berry-like drupes that persist after the leaves fall, a feature shared across the beautyberry genus. It is one of several Callicarpa species valued both ornamentally and in regional folk medicine.