_Phytolacca decandra_
_Flowers_--White, with a green centre, pink tinted outside, about 1/4
in. across, in bracted racemes 2 to 8 in. long. Calyx of 4 or 5 rounded
persistent sepals, simulating petals; no corolla; 10 short stamens;
10-celled ovary, green, conspicuous; styles curved. _Stem:_ Stout,
pithy, erect, branching, reddening toward the end of summer, 4 to 10 ft.
tall, from a large, perennial, poisonous root. _Leaves:_ Alternate,
petioled, oblong to lance-shaped, tapering at both ends, 8 to 12 in.
long. _Fruit:_ Very juicy, dark purplish berries, hanging in long
clusters from reddened footstalks; ripe, August-October.
_Preferred Habitat_--Roadsides, thickets, field borders, and waste soil,
especially in burnt-over districts.
_Flowering Season_--June-October
_Distribution_--Maine and Ontario to Florida and Texas.
When the Pokeweed is “all on fire with ripeness,” as Thoreau said; when
the stout vigorous stem (which he coveted for a cane), the large leaves,
and even the footstalks, take on splendid tints of crimson lake, and the
dark berries hang heavy with juice in the thickets, then the birds, with
increased hungry families, gather in flocks as a preliminary step to
travelling southward. Has the brilliant, strong-scented plant no
ulterior motive in thus attracting their attention at this particular
time? Surely! Robins, flickers, and downy woodpeckers, chewinks and
rose-breasted grosbeaks, among other feathered agents, may be detected
in the act of gormandizing on the fruit, whose undigested seeds they
will disperse far and wide. Their droppings form the best of fertilizers
for young seedlings; therefore the plants which depend on birds to
distribute seeds, as most berry-bearers do, send their children abroad
to found new colonies, well equipped for a vigorous start in life. What
a hideous mockery to continue to call this fruit the Pigeon-berry, when
the exquisite bird whose favorite food it once was, has been annihilated
from this land of liberty by the fowler’s net! And yet flocks of wild
pigeons, containing not thousands but millions of birds, nested here
even thirty years ago. When the market became glutted with them, they
were fed to hogs in the West!
Children, and some grown-ups, find the deep magenta juice of the
Ink-berry useful. Notwithstanding the poisonous properties of the root,
in some sections the young shoots are boiled and eaten like asparagus,
evidently with no disastrous consequences.