PlantFiles: American Pokeweed
Phytolacca americana

This plant appeared on our south central Texas property after we had the septic tank hole dug...I had never seen it before then. I really like it! It grows big and lush in just a few weeks in the spring, and the berries are spectacular. Poisonous? So what? So are a lot of other plants! Just don't let the kiddos eat the berries, and you're OK.

The young plants are easy to transplant, but forget about moving the big guys.

What I like most about this plant is that it's one of the few things in my garden that the deer don't appear to be at all interested in, and that makes it terrific in my book!

I used to play in this plant as a child and about 15 years ago I was clearing a garden and got covered with the sap. Next I was covered with a rash which my doctor diagnosed as poison sumac. He told me to avoid the plant as with allergies they only get worse. About three years later I gingerly removed the plant full grown from the side of the house and then through caution to the winds tearing out some invasive mint not realizing their were babypokeweed plants co mingled. Several hours later I was covered with the same rash and this time given serious medication pregnisone which my family said made me impossible to live with. Now if I spy a pokeweed in any stage my husband removes it asap. I hope I have some bizarre reaction as I agree it is not unpleasent to look at.

Barbara

As far as being poisonous, there are many common garden vegetables and most common flowers are on the USDA poisonous plants list. The tomato is considered a poisonous plant, also the potato. Heck, I even saw catfish on a poisonous fish list in the science building at Howard Payne University. Ok, regarding pokeweed, it's very common here but I've never seen it become invasive. I've found it on old abandoned farm properties along with pomegranates, onions and other plants that the old timers kept around because they ate them. The fresh, new tender leaves are excellent boiled greens if you boil and change the water twice. I've eaten them for years and have never become sick. I'll be gathering a batch soon. Yum.

I have nothing good to say about this plant.

To kill it... use Roundup.

It is invasive, poisious, spread by bird and is a menace.
Pretty is as pretty does. But this plant can get huge.
My neighbor has it in their pasture with livestock....when they have no other vegitation to eat, the animals will ingest it. Then she wonders why she got sick animals...some people just have no clue. Some vets have no clue either.

If you grow it, be prepared to control it. And that is hard to do with a plant the birds love and they have immunity to. Perhaps pot it, but it has a tape root so that makes doing that difficult when the plant gets huge.

I think this plant is beautiful. We moved into this house late last fall so we are now discovering all the plant life on our property. We have so many plants that seem to produce one kind of berry or another. But I fell in love with this one in the spring. The colors are fantastic. Where it is growing hides some unsightly views so thats a good thing. However...I do have small children so I do worry about it now. But we've done a good job of teaching them not to eat anything growing wild unless we tell them it's ok. And I always search out what it is before I let them. But again. I think this plant is beautiful.

I have 2 of these that are "volunteers" but I like the look of the berries and they're in a "wildlife" area we have in the yard so they're OK with me.

They've been knocked down and stomped on and looked dead but came back every time. Oops.

As for invasive tendencies, ours DO NOT seem to be starting up elsewhere on the property and we've been here for years and years.

I know I've touched this plant before (dragging the dead parts to the trash, etc.) but I experienced no physical reaction. Maybe it's just me.

Due to its invasive and poisonous qualities, I can see why this plant isn't terribly loved, but I can't help but be impressed with the amount of growth this plant "puts out" every year. It dies back to its roots every winter and comes back bigger the following season. I often wonder whether this plant might be a good candidate for ethanol production?!

One berry a day has been said to ease arthritis pain, and the juice makes a great dye or ink.

You can eat the young shoots in Spring, but only before they get 10 to 12 inches tall and leaf out. You must boil the young shoots in several changes of water. DO NOT EAT RAW! The mature parts of the plant are toxic if eaten and can cause severe vomiting. Eating the berries can cause nausea and if eaten by children, can cause severe reactions. DO NOT EAT THE ROOTS! The root has a dangerous narcotic effect.

Poke can become quite invasive. It suddenly appeared in my yard in town and I was never able to get rid of it.

The boiled leaves are excellent, but if you aren't used to it, start with a very small amount as it will clean you out!

Only use very young leaves and never use any if the stems have already turned purple.

Why would anyone want this plant? Are you all crazy who want to buy it. If you are crazy enough I will send you an armfull, it has come up in every bed I have created. Oh and by the way it is on the USDA Poisonous Plants list!

The berries, ripening in autumn and poisonous to humans, are very popular with migrating songbirds, especially robins, towhees, mockingbirds, mourning doves, catbirds, and bluebirds. The birds are very effective at converting the purple berries into purple splotches on the sidewalk. Sometimes the birds get drunk on overly ripe berries and don't seem to care where they leave their purple splotches.

WARNING
The roots, berries, seeds, and mature stems and leaves of pokeweed are dangerously poisonous. Only the young shoots and developing leaves (before they take on their reddish hue) can be eaten, and only after boiling for 20-30 minutes in at least two changes of water. Be very careful not to get any of the root when picking the young shoots. Pokeweed should not be cultivated anywhere there is a chance that a person might try to eat the berries.

Pokeweed is an alternative host for several plant viruses that feeding insects can transmit to members of the Solanaceae, Liliaceae and Amaryllidaceae growing nearby.



Makes me not want to grow it!

While it may be considered true that the plant is poisonous, I've never heard of anyone dying from it. If a large amount is consumed, it could cause diarrhea & the fresh sap may be injurous to the eyes. I'm sure that the more mature the plant, the higher the toxins would be.

As previously said, the berries are highly favored by birds. It is by this fact alone, I'd keep the plants around. It seems that they tend to be an open canopy type plant so they could shade smaller plants under it.

It is known as a spring green from those who eat wildfoods. By my family's experience its young leaves & tips are very edible. We ate these delicious parts until it started blooming. By then we'd have other greens in the garden to enjoy. In the early spring, I used to snap off the entire 12" or so tall stalks to the ground, to barely steam them good then throw them into a skillet with a little oil to finish off the cooking. As the plant matured I'd pick only the tip of the stalks along with younger leaves & parboil them before eating like cooked greens (Spinach, Mustard, Kale, etc). My favorite was to cut the fresh young stems, roll them in flour, & fry them like Okra. Delicious!

This plant started growing in my backyard in Merriam, KS a few years ago. I let it go because of the beautiful berries that the birds love. It comes back faithfully every year. It spreads so well because I believe the birds deposit the seeds across the garden. If you weed it while it's very small and young, it's no problem to contain...once the plant is 5-6 feet high...its roots are huge. But once anyone sees the huge amount of beautiful cascading berries and watches the birds eat them...you will never want to be without this awesome plant in your garden.

I live in Pittsburgh and I have a double city lot in back. I've been building walls, steps, perennial beds, etc. to dolly up the yard as it was an abandoned jungle when I moved in. Anyhow, this pokeweed is making my life miserable...it's growing everywhere and as many have noted, it's impossible to eradicate. Has anyone had success removing this plant?

Living in the country, we see Poke in mass. We
allow it to grow, and even move it closer to the house
to enjoy the birds that come to dine on the many
berries (seeds) the plants put off each year.

While I'm not into eating the greens, I do welcome
Poke (Polk Salet) in my garden. Digging some up?
Better get a long shovel. :-)

Karen Marie

From personal experience, the toxicity of this plant varies greatly depending on time of year and part of plant. Roots are highly toxic. Skip this entirely if you have kids or horses!

Pokeweed, Poke Salad (Phytolacca americana)

The small white flowers are in a tapering raceme. Purple to black berries with a staining juice are used as a food coloring and in dyes. The berries and seeds are eaten by song and game birds, while the plants are eaten by deer.

The stems are branching and purplish near the ends. The leaves of young plants (poke salad), are eaten by some people in the spring months. Grows well on disturbed ground, roadsides, ditch banks, lots, cut-over or burned woodlands.

This plant does grow wild in this area. It is very invasive, but it could be called interesting. The berries are intoxicating to birds. I have seen birds act strange shortly after eating them, but it does not take them long to recuperate. I have heard and read tales about the young (spring) shoots being cooked and eaten (poke salad), but I don't recommend it. I do have a small patch of these plants in my "natural area" just for the birds, because there is so much building going on here, there is less and less for them to eat.

I got this Pokeweed as a "freebee" in a wildflower seed mix packet from an online seed company. It was not listed on their website, but online research showed me that it is the American Pokeweed. I am glad to have in a flower pot, so hopefully it is contained. It has produced nice looking berries in winter, though.

The plant really does have a beautiful coloration and its root has been used for the production of soap (I'm not certain how this was done, I'll eventually know). Just for those of you who might want to plant it, use some sort of underground containment!

As has already been stated, they get BIG tap roots and wherever you cut (like comfrey) the little buggers will grow another stalk. If you do have some you are digging, note all the nice little nodes they have just waiting to produce more of themselves. I don't mean to sound bitter, I like the plant but I spent all last season trying to get two seperate plants in two very different areas of my yard to GO AWAY. I thought I had finally triumphed after I dug down about 2 1/2 feet and dug out the major portion of tap roots. Instead, I just got a whole mess of babies.

Just as a side note: Smothering them doesn't work either. The shoots will push whatever you are covering the ground with up, tear through it, etc. I finally just let the stupid plant have that square of the garden with the intention of removing the rock wall on that side and getting ALL of it out. But instead I moved (not due to the plant).

Beautiful, useful to animals, nuisance if they aren't where you want them in the first place. Ironically, this is going to be one of the first items I plant once I find out what is already growing at my new home.

I have to admit that even though it is a difficult-to-eradicate noxious weed, I too allow it to flourish on my property where appropriate due to its attributes as wild bird food. In fact, I currently have several plants right up against my deck that are around 12-foot tall & covered with berries. I've let them grow there because they are covered with birds as well.

Drawbacks? Late in the season the berries can ferment on the plant & actually "intoxicate" the birds, so if you do have these plants about & at the same time see a number of birds behaving strangely, this might be the cause. Another drawback is that birds feeding on the berries produce droppings that will stain wood (decks & outdoor furniture), as well as fabric if you hang your wash outdoors. And - as others have mentioned, it may be unwise to have this plant about if you have young children that may be tempted to eat the attractive fruit, as it is poisonous to humans.

Yes, pokeweed does have a tendency to grow where it is unwanted but I find that it's very easy to pull up.

Pokeweed plays an important role in nature as it feeds a great many birds. I've observed mockingbirds and cedar waxwings as the most attracted to pokeweed but also other species of birds as well.

I strongly advise letting pokeweed grow in uninhabited areas of property to provide food for wildlife in a world where their natural food and habitat is fast dissapearing.

Thank you for the information that birds will like the fruit later. I didn't cut mine down (though I may be sorry since it crowds the lilac bush) because I thought the birds would.

When this plant first came up on my property, I thought it was pretty too, and let it set fruit. BEWARE. It is hugely invasive. It has invaded several of my flowerbeds and cannot be removed without digging out the huge fleshy root.

I used to always chop poke weed down until I noticed how the birds loved the berries.

This stuff is very invasive and a real pain because it keeps coming up in more places.

The red color of the stems and the purple berries make a great color combination. A fast cover or hedge to screen a "bad" view or grown along a chainlink fence.... but once established you better like it since it is VERY hard to remove, you'd have to dig the HUGE tap roots out!

Attractive to wildlife, and used sparingly as 'Spring Greens' ,Pokeweed is well known in this area. It overwinters, and new growth is seen on old roots each Spring.

Pokeweed berries are highly attractive to robins, bluebirds and other fruit-eating birds during the winter (although they ignore it during the fall when the berries are ripening). Do not cut down the plant until the birds have removed all the berries, usually by mid-winter.

They grow wild around here in Michigan zone 5b....They're everywhere here. But they are very, very pretty right now, all bright red and with those dark purple seeds.

Where I live we had plenty of poke greens; for some reason it stopped growing. I used to freeze it for winter.

WARNING: While good science is still lacking, anecdotal evidence suggests that skin contact with any part of American Pokeweed can affect the human nervous system. Pretty plant, but beware!

Pokeweed tends to sprout on newly disturbed ground and on burned areas. In the south, a lot of people eat the greens; I certainly do. They are a little strong-flavored so I usually boil them awhile, pour the water off, and then start again with fresh water and seasonings. Cut them off to the ground when they are quite young and tender, before any berries appear, at about a foot tall or less. Several sprouts will come up where you made the cut and you get to recut them and have several intervals when you can get a "mess" for quite awhile. They are delicious. Just call me Poke Salet Annie!
I know you hear about them being poisonous and I supposed if you ate enough of the berries, that could be true. But my mother-in-law used to color her apple jelly with the juice from the berries.
I think the roots are even more poisonous. A late old friend of mine used to dig the roots and slice them and fry them up in bacon drippings and feed them to his dogs to worm them. It worked! His dogs were always very healthy with very shiny coats.
Poke is a perennial, but unreliable. Apparently the soil has to be just right (poor). I have never tried to propagate them.

CAUTION. It is strongly recommended that this plant is not put in any garden where young children (who may be tempted to eat the berries) have access. They are poisonous. In addition, be careful when taking cuttings, as the roots of most varieties are highly toxic.