In early September a few years ago, one of my Decatur neighbors, who was from Great Britain, asked if I knew the identify of a tall, shrub-like plant growing in a dense colony along a creek in our neighborhood.
He said the plant’s shiny, ink-dark berries gleamed like jewels — some of the most beautiful berries he’d ever seen. I was puzzled, and suggested we go to the creek for a look.
“There it is,” he said when we got there. Imagine my surprise when I realized he was pointing to a thicket of one of Georgia’s most common native plants — pokeweed, or pokeberry.
“That’s just plain old pokeweed,” I said, a little bewildered that my neighbor seemed so enamored over it. I took a closer look at the small, purplish-black berries to see what was so alluring to him. And then, I, too, could see their special beauty as they dangled from stalks the color of brilliant magenta.
Until then, I had paid pokeberry no special mind.
My neighbor asked if the berries were edible; I replied with a resounding “No.” The plant is mostly toxic to humans, although some Southerners have a fondness for “poke salad,” a dish carefully made from the plant’s leaves in spring.
For wild creatures, though, pokeberry is nontoxic: It is, in fact, a valuable food source.
In early summer, ruby-throated hummingbirds and several insect species sip nectar from pokeweed’s small, pinkish blooms. Bees collect pollen from them. The caterpillar of the giant leopard moth, Georgia’s largest moth, feeds exclusively on pokeweed leaves. Deer browse on the leaves and stems.
But it’s in late summer when pokeweed is at its most beautiful with its ripe, jewel-like berries. Some 50 songbird species get nourishment from them. So do raccoons, opossums, foxes and other mammals.
Native Americans made a purplish dye from the berries’ red juice.
My old neighbor has moved back to Great Britain, but I think of him when I see a tangled pokeweed thicket full of ripe berries in late summer.
IN THE SKY: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon will be last quarter on Thursday. Mercury is low in the west at dusk. Venus rises in the east about two hours before dawn. Mars rises in the east after dark and will appear near the moon Saturday night. Jupiter and Saturn are high in the southeast after dark.
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