American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana), or often more simply just “pokeweed”, is a common eastern North American herbaceous perennial found in damp thickets, recent clearings and roadsides. It can grow up to 10 feet tall, but more commonly reaches a height of 5 or 6 feet. It has a widely branching form and distinctive bright red or purplish stems. Clusters of green and white flowers are borne on hanging stalks. The flowers are petal-less; the small petal-like structures seen around the green centers are the sepals. These simple flowers give way to dark purple fleshy berries on a red stalk. As a child, I frequently collected and smashed up these berries to use as a bold natural paint color for my outdoor art on rocks and stumps. It turns out, I wasn’t the first one to consider the artistic possibilities of pokeweed berries. Pokeweed berry juice was used by early American colonists as ink for quill pens. 

Although I spent a great deal of time playing with these berries, I never ate them. Pokeweed berries are toxic to humans. They are, however, commonly eaten by migrating songbirds and other wildlife. In fact, the seeds must pass through an animal’s digestive tract in order to germinate. The toxins that prevent us from eating the berries are also present in all parts of the plant, although in a lesser quantity in tender, new shoots. Despite its toxicity, pokeweed is technically edible when young if properly prepared (it requires a lengthy boiling in two to three changes of water to leach out the toxins), and is listed in a number of wild edible guides. However, given the variety of foraging opportunities available in the spring, and the potential harmful repercussions from eating this plant (e.g., vomiting, diarrhea, convulsions, etc.), I would advise not eating this particular wild edible.