Phytolacca americana
The latest addition to our Herbal Explorations pages.
Pokeweed is one of the most controversial yet fully legal weeds you’ll hear about, I’m sure!
A young plant on left surrounded by poison ivy. On right a mature plant with ripe and unripe berries surrounded by fireweed
Elderberry-Pokeberry syrup for flavoring cocktails and Pokeberry kombucha—such lovely colors!
There is a hefty amount of misinformation on this ubiquitous plant, but in recent years there’s been a significant pushback, especially among Southerners, where for some it’s been a staple crop for generations.
Though its reputation is still highly contested! The YT video below tells a good chunk of poke’s dramatic story. 😁
It is used as an ornamental in some areas, while others consider it invasive. Ranchers consider it a nuisance and try to eradicate it, though it loves nitrogen-rich soil, so tends to pop back up wherever animals have been penned up or have heavily grazed, therefore fertilizing the land.
We do use it as an ornamental and a food crop, and I’ve written short posts about it here and here. I make wine and syrup from the berries and use the greens in many dishes. The popular belief that the greens must be boiled 3 times is mistaken and overkill.
However, care must be taken in its preparation and it’s not to be eaten raw. The above video explains a lot for those wanting to give poke a fair shake!
Rinsing well before submerging in boiling water.
Boiled in batches until limp, rinsed in cold water, then used in a dish that will be cooked, like a casserole or stir-fry, or frozen for future use.
The common advice to boil it three times disintegrates the leaves into slime, but you’ll hear that all over the internet and probably from your neighbors too.
That is, if they aren’t already convinced it’s poisonous.
This false belief most likely comes from four places: 1) The farmers and ranchers who would like to see it eradicated because it so successfully competes with the grasses. 2) The high-end wine-makers of our predecessors, because the ripe berry juice was used to color inferior quality wine to make it sell better. 3) Rockefeller medicine which demonizes traditional healing herbs and practices. 4) Chemical dye manufacturers who wanted to dominate the market as it was (and still is) used as a natural fabric dye.
The economic importance of pokeweed to our ancestors was sure to be unpopular with manufacturers and industrialists wanting to create dependency on their products.
A few benefits taken from the sources linked below, not the best translations, unfortunately, but some interesting info. (They do also repeat the plant leaves cannot be used after the stalk turns crimson, but in my experience and in the video above, this is not the case.)
“The young shoots of Ph. americana are eaten cooked as a substitute for asparagus in spring, and its tender leaves were eaten as a substitute for spinach even by the North American (Delaware and Virginian) Indians.
We can found this kind of utilization nowadays too: at markets in the southern states of the USA it is sold as „sprouts” even these days, and they sell its young, tender leaves tinned (Poke Salet Greens). At some places it is still cultivated, though only in small-scale. The tender, bright inner part of the stem is crumbed in cornstarch and fried. They use the young plants before crimson coloration, but the cooking water needs to be discarded. Its ripe berries are added to cake pastries. The roots and the leafy stems are traditionally used for purple-brown dyeing. This colour is not much permanent, after body painting it can be removed easily. The root contains much saponin so it can be used for making soaps. The leaf ’s powder or the leaves were used for external treatment of cancerous wounds. After it got into Europe it was not only planted as an ornamental plant, but its dark purple dye was used for food coloration. The liquor of the berries were pressed, fermented and cleaned up by straining and afterwards it was evaporated down to about honey density in Chinas. The product was used at one for the coloration of foods, preserved fruits, sweets, liqueurs and wines; and for example alias Succus Phytolaccae inspissatus it was sold in German pharmacies. The berries were used to colour the wines of poorer quality with such a success that the plant was widely grown in Portugal, Spain, France and Italy. An ethnobotanical fact about the plant in the Carpathian Basin is that the Transylvanian (Kalotaszeg, Kiskapus) people put the fruit in the barrel cabbage to give it a red colour. Thanks to it betacyanin content it can be used as an industrial dye, but its colour is not as persistent as the colour of the scarlet oak (Quercus coccifera) is. Rarely it was used for wool and silk coloration too. The crimson coloured sap of the berries was used as ink (for example by the soldiers in the World War), that is where English name, inkberry derives from. A limner from Missouri, Bingham used it as paint. Its therapeutical utilization has traditions too. The Delaware Indians considered it to which has cardiac restorative effect, and the Virginian tribes used it for its strong psychotic effect. They presumed it is useful against rheumatism, tumours and in smaller doses against syphilis too. Its therapeutical utilization is comprehensive. Earlier the European therapeutics used it too as an emetic: Radix, Herba et Baccae Phytolaccae. Its root, leaves and fruits are used in the homeopathy too. The plant is a pharmaceutical base material even nowadays. Its drug is used as an antirheumaticum, purgaticum and emeticum (alias “poke root” or „Phytolacca”) in the USA, besides the lush root may can be used against breast cancer, too. The berries are utilized there for food coloration too, and with its leaves they adulterate, or rather substitute the „Folia Belladonnae”. The modern medicine started to show interest in it, thanks to the antiviral protein (pokeweed antiviral protein, PAP) that blocks the infection and reproduction of the HIV virus. The external use of PAP has an inhibi- tory effect on the plant RNS viruses too. The transgenic plants that contain the gene of this protein became resistent to a wide range of viruses. They impute that the root of the Ph. americana has blood cleanser, anti- inflammatory, expectorant, sedative, stupefying and purgative effects too. There are experiments for its uti- lization to cure the autoimmun diseases, especially the rheumatic arthritis. The plant contains toxic compounds against micro-fungi and molluscs too. The lectins extracted from it have toxic effect on the juvenile larvae of the southern corn rootworm (Diabrotica undecimpunctata howardi).”
Web references
Armstrong, W. P.: Pokeweed: an interesting American vegetable. In: Economic Plant Families. Wayne’s World, Escondido, California. http://waynesword.palomar.edu/ecoph24.htm
Hedrick, U. P. (ed.) & Moore, M. (upd.) (1972): Sturtevant’s edible plants of the world. Dover Publications, New York. E-version: The Southwest School of Botanical Medicine. http://www.swsbm.com
NIAES (2005): Japanese Fungi on Plants. National Institute for Agro-Environmental Sciences Natural Resources Inventory Center, Microbial Systematics Laboratory, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan. http://www.niaes.affrc.go.jp/inventry/microorg/eng/kingaku-rs.htm
Plants For a Future. http://www.scs.leeds.ac.uk/pfaf/
RBGE (2001): Flora Europaea database. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. http://193.62.154.38/FE/fe.html
Medicinal properties and anti-inflammatory components of Phytolacca (Shanglu) – ScienceDirect
Compare that to what our US institutions repeat:
All parts poisonous, lots of toxicity fear-mongering, and usually including advice not to plant it in your garden.
Native Plant of the Week: American Pokeweed | Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum
