North American Pokeweed Gardens: Ground Cover, Red Dye and Toxic Food

Summary: North American pokeweed gardens cautiously tender toxic berries, leaves, roots and seeds as bird food, blanched vegetables, ground cover and red dyes.

pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) flowers; Juno Dunes Natural Area, Palm Beach County, southeastern Florida; May 9, 2012: Bob Peterson (bob in swamp), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

North American pokeweed gardens alleviate ground reflection loss on barren, compacted, disturbed, unbalanced soils even though they accumulate toxic berries, leaves and seeds, alter corn and soybean yields and attack no-till croplands.

The native eastern North American perennial becomes stressful as vegetables blanched in three changes of water and useful as bird food, crimson dye and ground cover. Blanching cleanses younger, not older, leaves of toxins that cause abdominal cramps, muscular convulsions and respiratory failure but berry-eating birds cast seeds over wider distribution ranges. No federal, provincial, state or territorial legislation designates pokeweed or non-native red inkplant, Southern pokeberry or tropical pokeweed weeds in Canada, Mexico or the United States.

Poisonous ingestions by cattle, people and pigs and land invasions potentially expose pokeweed to future weed sanctions for endangering ecosystem well-being, food production and human health.

Elliptical to egg-shaped, 0.24- to 0.43-inch- (6- to 11-millimeter-) wide, 0.67- to 1.29-inch- (17- to 33-millimeter-) long embryonic leaves called cotyledons fill magenta, succulent seedling stems.

Pale-bottomed, unequal cotyledons grow through mature successive oblong-, lance- or egg-shaped, 3.94- to 19.68-inch- (10- to 50-centimeter-) long, 1.18- to 7.09-inch- (3- to 18-centimeter-) wide foliations. Dark to light green foliage on hairless, 0.39- to 2.36-inch- (1- to 6-centimeter-) long stalks has smooth to wavy margins, pink prominent veins and "ill-scented" disintegrations. Branched, hollow, pink to red-green, stalked stems incline from pokeweed's mature, 6.56- to 9.84-foot (2- to 3-meter) heights and 3.28- to 6.56-foot (1- to 2-meter) spreads.

The fleshy, white taproot, 5.91 inches (15 centimeters) across, jets dissolved hormones and nutrients into North American pokeweed gardens before winter diebacks and after spring resurrections.

Pink-tinged, green-white flower-clustered, 3.94- to 9.84-inch- (10- to 25-centimeter-) long inflorescences called racemes keep July to October bloom times atop central, red 5.91-inch- (15-centimeter-) long stalks.
Perfect, regular flowers, 0.19 to 0.28 inches (5 to 7 millimeters) across, liven 0.12- to 0.51-inch- (3- to 13-millimeter-) long stalklets on their raceme's central stalk. Pokeweed, named Phytolacca americana (American crimson-laked plant), metes flowers one pistil, five green-white to pink, 0.09- to 0.13-inch- (2.5- to 3.3-millimeter-) long sepals and 10 stamens. Nutrients from poisonous roots nudge photosynthates from poisonous leaves in nurturing non-poisonous flowers and poisonous globe-shaped berries 0.19 to 0.39 inches (5 to 10 millimeters) across.

Pokeweed, described by Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778), organizes berries color-changing from green to purple-black before offering North American pokeweed gardens seeds.

Black to purple, glossy, lens-shaped, smooth, 0.110- to 0.114-inch- (2.8- to 2.9-millimeter-) long, 0.098- to 0.110-inch- (2.5- to 2.8-millimeter-) wide seeds prove viable for 40 years.

Germination quickens from surface-level to 0.39-inch- (1-centimeter) depths even though pokeweed, also known as American pokeweed, common pokeweed and pokeberry, quits germinating below 1.18-inch (3-centimeter) depths. The common names coakrum, pocan bush, scoke and Virginia poke recall pokeweed's cultural impacts while inkberry, inkweed, pigeonbery and red ink plant refer to historic uses. American cancer, cancer jalap and garget stress health impacts of the weedy ornamental in the Phytolaccaceae family of herbs, shrubs and trees upon animals and people.

Containerized, courtyard and indoor North American pokeweed gardens thrive far less dangerously away from animals and crops, under minimum survival requirements and with proper cautionary signage.

a stand of pokeweed (Phytolacca americana); Northumberland County, east central Pennsylvania; Sept. 1, 2015: Jakec, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) flowers; Juno Dunes Natural Area, Palm Beach County, southeastern Florida; May 9, 2012: Bob Peterson (bob in swamp), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/pondapple/7185050481/

a stand of pokeweed (Phytolacca americana); Northumberland County, east central Pennsylvania; Sept. 1, 2015: Jakec, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pokeweed_bush_in_Northumberland_County,_Pennsylvania.JPG

For further information:

Dickinson, Richard; and Royer, France. 2014. Weeds of North America. Chicago IL; London, England: The University of Chicago Press.

Linnaeus, Carl. 1753. "1. Phytolacca americana." Species Plantarum, vol. I: 441. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358460

"Phytolacca americana L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/24800062

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.