5 SURprising Things About Pokeweed

hey y'all welcome back to one seed one world So today we're going to go over another uh type of weed or wild plant that may show up in your yard or garden from year to year especially especially if you live in North America this plant here is indigenous to North America and what is it it's poke weed today we'll go over five quick things about pokeweed all right so number one as I mentioned this plant is indigenous to North America I think it's probably more along the eastern part of the United States and ranges prior to maybe mid I don't know if you guys that live out in the west coast may see this as much um it is a perennial plant or weed that comes up and it starts off in the spring with tiny shoots that then can grow into quite a large Plant this is kind of a Bush at this point and I even have had some that I haven't kept up with that can also get as big as small trees the plant itself is toxic for the most part has many toxic properties and the more it matures the more toxic it kind of gets the most toxic part of the plant is the Tap Root which can get quite large as the plant matures and then the toxicity kind of maybe decreases as it spreads out although and I'll show you some close-ups of the plant but the uh as the stems get more of a red color they get to be more toxic when they are young green shoots they are much less toxic and the berries can be toxic too they can make you sick so if you have small kids you know make sure that they don't go start grabbing them and eating them because they do look kind of delicious but you definitely wouldn't want to eat them number two now I did mention that it's a toxic plant however when the shoots are young many people will eat the young shoots in the early spring it it's been called poke Saleh or Poke Salad and that's eating the young green shoots and however to eat them requires quite a bit of preparation to ensure that you don't get ill the process involves boiling the greens and then draining off all the water boiling them again draining that water and I think in a lot of cases they boiled them a third time before they would then consume them I personally wouldn't recommend eating them there are plenty of other kinds of wild edibles out there things like purslane or Burdock you know that you can get some wild greens that have plenty of nutrients in them or you might not have to you know go for a plant where you have to worry about getting sick from it if you don't cook it right although back like in the 17 or 1800s there was a writer I don't remember his name but he had written some things about the Poke plant or the poke weed and said that it was a good substitute for asparagus I'm going to go ahead and not go with his advice though but I'm sure that some of you out there especially uh I think it's been popular like in the Appalachia area that probably eat Poke Salad Every Spring and there's probably plenty of you up there that have a grandmother that has a specific recipe that they made for it so you do what uh you're comfortable with and what you're familiar with but I would not recommend eating it for me personally number three the berries from the poke weed or it's also called inkberry because you can make ink from the berries now there is a legend that says that the Constitution of the United States was originally signed using pokeberry ink while pokeberry Inc kind of has the same color and whatnot it this Legend is incorrect according to the National Archives the Constitution of the United States was signed an iron Gall Inc iron Gall Inc is made from Iron salts and from tannins from various different plants and it was a popular ink recipe that was used from about the fifth century all the way up into the 1900s and you can even still buy iron Gall ink like on Amazon if you want to go old school and get yourself a quill and dip it in an Inkwell foreign but you could also make your own ink out of pokeberry or the berries from the pokeweed there is some documentation that even though it wasn't used on the Constitution of the United States that during the Civil War in the United States back in you know the 1860s that many soldiers during the Civil War would use pokeberry ink to pen their letters home you can also use the berries as to make a die from people will die like their yarn cotton flax fibers that kind of thing with pokeberry juices and there's plenty of YouTube videos out there on how to do that it's something that I would like to try sometime the one thing is though is going back the toxicity thing is the juice from the berries can be absorbed Through Your Skin So if you are working with the berries of the poke weed you will want to wear gloves when you're making your ink or your dye number four a lot of the Native Americans did use this plant for various other things they use it for medicinal purposes they use it to induce vomiting to induce diarrhea to cleanse the body probably because you know this can make you sick and can cause vomiting and diarrhea but it was used as a cleansing mechanism they used it also for making like salves for curing itches and that kind of thing I'm not really sure what the process was if it was the leaves or the berries or how they did that and then they would also use the juice and berries to make inks and stuff that they would paint their horses with like for war paint and for other different religious rituals and number five uh one great thing about this plant is that it's uh fantastic for wildlife migratory Birds especially uh you know all your mix of songbirds and whatnot this is a source of food for them why they are on their migratory path and probably even throughout different parts of the year a lot of birds like to eat the berries the one problem you run into is that the birds eat the berries and then when they poop they're spreading the seeds all around through their poop and then the plant spreads this plant is considered invasive in many areas I consider it invasive in my yard because it spreads very rapidly grows pretty fast and as I mentioned as it gets bigger it gets that Big Tap Root that sometimes can be like that big around or even larger and goes way down deep in the ground they're very hard to get rid of you'd have to dig a pretty sizable hole to get rid of the Tap Root if you leave any parts of the Tap Root in the ground it will put off more shoots and continue to come back since it's a perennial plant so they are a pain you have to get rid of them when they are young but if you let them grow and let the berries come out the birds in your local neighborhood will probably appreciate your contribution so there's always that so I guess that's it really about pokeberry uh just a I guess that last night is as they come in the berries are like or they put off white flowers first and then those white flowers will turn into a small white Berry that will then turn green and then will become these pretty purplish black colored berries that are quite um quite full throughout the plant in most cases especially if they're in a place with a lot of sun so I don't have any video to show you of the white berries because we are much later in the season here you know we're in in going into October starting tomorrow so most of these plants are fully matured I do have a few green ones I can show you just to give you an idea what they look like hey but whatever's going on in your neck of the woods in your Gardens greenhouses backyards Farms farmettes whatever it is maybe you'll run across some pokeberry if you've used pokeberry either for like a Poke Salad if you eat it or if you've used the berries for dyes and inks let me know what you did and how it worked for you or are you one that's more like me that just struggles with trying to get rid of it out of all of your flower beds every year so feel free to put a comment below always appreciate getting information from all of you YouTubers out there and learning from you guys and getting your input but thanks for hanging out again with me today and I hope that you are having a fantastic day and that everything is working out great at your homestead we will see you again soon and uh that's it namaste [Music]

Channel: One Seed, One World

Views: 20,303

Keywords: pokeweed, poke salad, poke weed, pokeberry, poke berry, pigeon berry, inkberry, invasive weeds, invasive plants in virginia, invasive plants in maryland, invasive plants in west virginia, invasive plants in the united states, phytolacca americana

Id: KwcXcgXO168

Length: 10min 26sec (626 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 07 2022