WILDER SIDE OF OAKLAND COUNTY
Pokeweed (Phytolacca Americana) is drawing attention in these closing days of summer. This colorful native plant with a controversial cultural and folk history has even poked up without invitation at the edge of the manicured Cranbrook Gardens.
Not many plants have a song, but this one does. In 1969 Tony Joe White’s “Polk Salad Annie” became an instant country hit with memorable melancholy lyrics describing the lifestyle and family misfortunes of Annie, a Louisiana woman who gathered the leaves of pokeweed to feed her family.“She’d go out in the evenings to pick a mess of it… Carry it home and cook it for supper, ’cause that’s about all they had to eat.” As for her biggest misfortunes; a gator ate her granny.
Pokeweed is an easy to spot showy plant with stout purple stems, bright green lance shaped leaves, and distinctive purplish-black berries dangling down from the stems. If soil and moisture conditions are just right it can be more than eight feet tall. Pokeweed also has a dark secret that should give any forager pause. Although birds feed on the berries, and Annie boiled the leaves – boiled them twice – to feed her family, credible field guides and medical professionals warn that the entire plant is poisonous to humans and boiling leaves twice may not remove toxins.
When the plants first emerge in spring, the tender leaves were commonly gathered in the American South to create the traditional delicacy known as “Poke Sallet.” In Arkansas, Allen Canning Co. specialized in poke sallet, made from the pokeweed. It was popular because as one of the first spring greens it served to provide relief from a common winter menu that consisted mostly of salt pork, beans, and cornbread. As the people who grew up on poke sallet began to die off, the demand for the item dried up. Allen Canning packed its last batch of poke sallet greens in the spring of 2000.
Native Americans treated many ailments with poultices of pokeweed and even decorated horses with a botanical paint made from pokeweed. Supporters of James Polk, our 11th president, wore twigs of pokeweed on their lapels during his campaign. During the Civil War, pokeberry ink was used by soldiers to write home from the battlefields. Poultices of pokeweed have been used to treat rheumatism, sprains, bruises and —“bewitchment”.
Popular literature continues to discuss the plant’s potency, antiviral properties and possible medical uses to treat AIDS and cancers, however the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center warns, “Because pokeweed has toxic effects, it should not be used to treat cancer, infections, inflammation, or any other medical condition. Pokeweed contains chemicals that are known toxins, but several of its other components have shown biological activity in laboratory experiments. None of these effects have been seen in the human body.” The list of possible side effects of casual ingestion include severe stomach cramping, nausea and vomiting, difficult breathing, weakness, hypotension, convulsions, and sometimes death.
Although Annie’s family survived eating pokeweed leaves that were boiled twice my best advice as you hike the trails on the Wilder Side of Oakland County is to leave pokeweed alone. Though birds feast on the berries, people should only admire the berries, and the rest of this plant, as a sign that the dawn of autumn draws near.
Jonathan Schechter is the Nature Education Writer for Oakland County Government and blogs weekly about nature’s way, trails, and wildlife on the Wilder Side of Oakland County.
For the latest county news and events, visit our website and use #OaklandCounty on our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn pages.
I wouldn’t eat it! It’s pretty, but it’s as dangerous as the gator who got granny!
I agree on dangerous– but sure is pretty!
Look up videos on YouTube about poke weed, people down south eat it all of the time. Read the comments, one berry a day cures arthritis. Another comment states that in in the 1930 a woman had cancer, her doctor told her to fix and eat poke weed she was cured, every year after that she fixed for her family, not one person in her family has gotten cancer. Doesn’t it figure that big companies want to stop us from eating it. Boil the leaves and drain it 3 times , eat it like spinach. Look it up on YouTube and read the comments.
I’m in Grand Rapids Michigan I’m not in the south. I’m scared of the plant I will put gloves on and take it out. It grew right next to house we’re rain fall heavy.
This us the 1st year it’s been in yard. So it come in the bird waste (aka 💩) that’s how they say seeds get around. A bird poop there leave the seeds now I have dogs I sure wanta keep them. SAFE.
Pokeweed is well established in much of the midwest and all the photos I used in the blog are from within Oakland County. With that said, do not panic. Unless you eat the leaves, roots, berries etc you have nothing to worry about, and it all likelihood the result would be throwing up. And it’s very unlikely your dogs will want to eat the plant. But if you want to remove them, be sure to get the roots as well. And then bag it, and add to the trash. Birds are the main transporter of the seeds. Good luck! Jonathan
There are so many mis-stated facts in these comments. First Poke can only be toxic and make you sick IF YOU DO NOT COOK WELL. If you cook this well it’s not gourmet cuisine but when you are starving anything will do. Been there many times. I grew up in Louisiana we ate this…cooked WELL. Special Force military will also tell you the same…it’s edible, not great, and cook well or you are in for trouble. And it’s important to pick this plant young while it is tender.
I really wish people would verify facts before stating them on the internet. Oh wait everything out in the magical wide webs is true! LOL
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I would still say it’s plant to be wary of and certainly not a cure for cancer. I know families who never eat pokeweed and never had cancer.
I have it in my yard and it hasn’t hurt anything. Mary
Unless someone ( a human) eats the leaves and berries the plant is not ‘problematic” Birds feast on the berries and I’m glad you are peacefully coexistent with the pokeweed.
Pokweed is abundant in a corner of my field and we coexist nicely. (I don’t eat it)
I have a large beautiful pokeweed plant growing in yard that I bought at Lowes. I kept the description on the card from the plant. It is suppose to be a goji berry. I’m glad I looked it up. Planted beside my raspberries and it’s getting dug up.
Good idea: you certainly do not want pokeweed berries mixed with raspberries.
Re eating it: take a lesson from other cultures re eating toxic plants. Just because it doesn’t kill you outright doesn’t mean it won’t cause you and your loved ones misery later. Parkinsons, neurodegenerative diseases, cancer, etc. are a plant’s long term strategy for eliminating predators.
Be smart. Live long and prosper.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234978/
Hi Ellen,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts–and the attached link. I will print it out and read later. Just skimmed through for now. Jonathan
What concerned me was I bought the plant at Lowes a couple of years before and it was sold as blueberries. How many other people are living with that plant thinking it is blueberries?
Hi Sandra, I really do not know what to say, since blueberry shrubs and pokeweed plants have absolutely NOTHING in common as to their shape or how they grow. ( It would almost be like confusing a dog with a chicken.) And blueberry shrubs remain year after year. Pokeweed shoots die end of the season and new sprouts emerge in the spring