Pokeweed

Phytolacca americana

This deep taproot of this hardy perennial sends up a new burst of branching shoots with luxuriant foliage every spring (the foliage dies back in winter).  The leaves are large (up to 10 inches long), ovate-pointed, smooth, smooth-edged, with prominent feather-veins, and have a petiole of an inch or two. Stems are round, green or white, turning pink or reddish as the season progresses. The ends of some stems produce a cylindrical raceme of small white or pink blossoms--the raceme about 3-6 inches long and about 1 inch in diameter. (In photo at left, the racemes hold white buds.) After blooming, these flowers turn into green berries that ripen to dark purple and contain a juice that has been used as a dye. (See photo below left.) The berries are not edible by humans, although birds do eat them (and thus spread the plant by excreting the seeds consumed).  

2-10 feet, sun - partial sun.

Summer (July-September).

  The raceme of small white or pinkish flowers in bloom.

5 July 2020.

Pokeweed, 26 June 2020.

The ripening berries (green at bottom, ripe in middle; I suppose the missing berries at top have already fallen off or been eaten by birds, leaving the empty peduncle or flower-shoot).

17 August 2020.