On mine, the berries are still there when the bush is flowering the next spring. Perhaps they have not been "discovered" by the local wildlife yet. I won't comment on the bush in general as I am fighting some sort of bacterial/fungal disease in many of my V. dilatatums. They look like hell.

This exact thing is happening to mine as well, it does look like root rot since they pull out of the ground easily and are mushy but that doesn’t make any sense since they are marsh plants. I live in georgia and when I first noticed it I thought I was over watering so I limited the water I gave them but its Been almost a month and they are still suffering. My best guess is that it‘a either under watering or some kind of fungus/disease. I’m going to attempt to give them more water and spray them down with a fungicide and see if I have any success, if you’ve happened to figure out what went wrong with yours I would greatly appreciate any advice.

Ok, I am doing some reseach on the issue. I did find a neat web page which shows us some pics of other similarly affected Cardinals and discusses causes of baldness. Check it out here: http://www.hiltonpond.org/ThisWeek030701.html and this: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~insrisg/nature/nw98/baldbirds.html and this: http://www.birdchick.com/wp/2007/08/bald-cardinals-and-other-bald-birds/ "The thing that I find interesting is that the cardinal that I shot had white skin not dark skin." I wasn't able to find anything which specifically stated the reason why the skin would be white instead of dark, but this is obviously something which isn't so uncommon. I'll keep looking when I get time, and if I find anything else re the white skin, I will come back and post it for you. :o)

I have watched the 'black cardinal' from the beginning post, and it is a cardinal, no longer black though, but still very dark brown, yes there is a red tint to all the feathers, I'm inclined to think it's a male too. He is a loner, never comes to the feeders with a group like most do. He is aggressive and runs the other cardinals off, no matter how red they are. Most of the time he just waits till the other cardinals are gone. he will feed with all the other birds as long as they don't get to close. I have a video where you see a female cardinal come and land on the cast iron post the feeder is on, while the dark cardinal was at the feeder, and it did get mean with the female, repeatably flying up at her till she left. The beautiful female with the brown to tan, beside the the dark cardinal his brown looks black compared to her. I've not seen him near a juvenile male yet. He's a beautiful bird, at any rate. I have been trying to take the video and get some snapshots from it, my Kodak is not like my Flip video, my Flip has software built in for doing anything, including snapshots. Here's a picture from a set a few days ago, not good quality, and in the shade, I'll try and send the other three or four. the only way I have to tell him from any other, is that the dark color shows him up, even if he is flying across the yard to the feeder.