Identification difficulty: Novice
This post is a long time coming, I really should have made this post a long time ago. You see, it's bothered me for a while that pokeweed, Phytolacca americana, is such a popular edible wild plant, such a well-known plant, such a historically significant plant, and yet there is so very little info out there helping identify it when it's young and harvestable.
There is a ton of info to help identify the mature plant, which is very easy to ID. But as I wrote once before, you can't EAT pokeweed when it's mature -- it becomes fatally poisonous.
But in the early spring, they young shoots and leaves can be harvested, and, if properly prepared, are safe to eat -- even delicious. Like the best baby spinach you've ever imagined.
It's such a popular food of the American South that it's been a part of our nation's cultural heritage, even becoming the theme of a hit song, Poke Salet Annie, in the late 1960s.
If you've been curious about how to safely identify pokeweed when it's young, you've come to the right post!
Common places to look for pokeweed
Pokeweed is a transitional understory plant. Transitional meaning it thrives in the transitional period where as field and meadow become forest. It gets crowded out fairly easily by trees, so you will rarely find it in deep forest, instead look for small forest clearings (usually where a massive old tree has fallen, leaving an open space), on the edges of meadows or farmland and along man-made or animal trails. In nature, "washes" -- places where spring rainwater frequently comes down the sides of hills, clearing out small trees, frequently grow pokeweed.
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| This pokeweed is too mature to eat. But it is growing in a classic spot: on the edge between a field and woodlands |
However, if pokeweed roots get broken up, any piece of root about 2-3" long can grow a new plant. For this reason, human activity can spread pokeweed around like crazy. During excavation, construction and earth-moving, people may inadvertently break up a pokeweed plant, creating dozens more at the edges of construction, where the root-bearing dirt has been deposited.
Consequently, look for pokeweed for along the edges of suburban developments built within the past 5 years, or along any area kept clear of trees by human activity: farms, parks/playgrounds, the edges sporting fields and along trails are all good places to look.
The most pokeweed I personally ever saw was when my parents had their new Connecticut home build in 1990, when I was 10. The land had been farmland until the early 1900s, at which point it had been allowed to grow feral, reverting to forest, with tree ages not that much older than 50 years at most. There were also several clearings. In one of those clearings, where my parents build their house, there must have been at least one pokeweed plant, because when they dug the foundation, they disturbed those roots. For several years after, we had literally HUNDREDS of pokeweed plants surrounding the clearing of our home, until eventually small saplings started to grow into small trees, forcing the pokeweed out.
Young spring pokeweed identification
Many North Americans already know mature pokeweed by sight. It's hard to miss, as the plant can grow 6 feet tall and equally wide, in arching red boughs, bearing large, deep green leaves and 4-6 inch clusters of deep purple-black fruit on red stems.
The problem is, by the time pokeweed is easy to spot and identify, it's well past the point where it can be safely eaten. This post will help you identify young pokeweed in the spring, when its safe to consume (after proper preparation):
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| Super young pokeweed growth. Note the stalks of last year's plants in the background |
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| Dried up old fruit is the best way to pre-find pokeweed |
Finding young pokeweed
Pokeweed is perennial: once established, it will regrow from the roots year after year. For that reason, you can find pokeweed before it grows by finding last year's plants.
The stalks of pokeweed plants are long, hollow tubes that are beige in color, but often feature grey or black streaking and spotting. There will always be some dried up clusters of pokeweed fruit dangling from one branch or another.
Side note: because old pokeweed stalks are hollow, breaking up the tubes makes an excellent tinder/fire starter, as long as they are very dry.
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| The stalk is the most important way to identify pokeweed. Note in the slightly older plants on the right, the skin should be peeled away from the plant base before preparing it for consumption |
Stalk color and growth pattern
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| Pokeweed is safest when the skin is super thin, like this |
The stalk of young pokeweed is translucent neon green tube around a white core, covered with a super thin, translucent skin that peels away pretty easily from breaks.
