Fruit Color in American Beautyberry Is Controlled by a Single Gene

American beautyberry (Callicarpa americana L.) is a deciduous shrub native to the southeastern U.S. and is grown primarily for its metallic-purple fruit that develop in fall.  There are also pink- and white-fruiting forms but these traits are rare in nature and there is no information available regarding their inheritance.  Also, there is confusion regarding self-compatibility and the presence of apomixis in Callicarpa L.  Crosses were performed to investigate the genetics of fruit color, self-compatibility, and apomixis in american beautyberry.  Testcrosses between C. americana (CA) and C. americana ‘Lactea’ (CAL) showed that white fruit is recessive to purple.  White fruit appears to be controlled by a single recessive gene for which we propose the name white fruit and the gene symbol wf.  While there were only a limited number of progeny grown, crosses between CA and ‘Welch’s Pink’, a pink-fruiting form, suggest that purple is dominant to pink.  Test crosses between CAL and ‘Welch’s Pink’ are needed to draw conclusions; however, we propose that purple, pink, and white fruit are controlled by an allelic series for which we suggest the gene symbols Wf > wf ^p > wf.  Segregation ratios showed that all progeny in the study developed through sexual hybridization, indicating that apomixis is not present in these genotypes.  All genotypes used in the current study were self-compatible.