#601801 - 09/03/1311:59 PMRe: For the Plant Experts?
[Re: Papa]
Pirate
Old And In The Way
Registered: 02/21/07
Posts: 3284
Loc: Missouri
That is a poke plant...while the berries are green in the photo they will eventually turn dark red/purple..do not eat the berries...they will at the very least make you sick. http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/newspaper/june21b02.html
Old country folk eat the poke plant when it is young and tender, however conventional wisdom is not to eat any of the plant because all parts of it are not good for man or beast.
I had a huge stand of poke plants in my yard that no matter what I did to them they kept coming back
I had a huge stand of poke plants in my yard that no matter what I did to them they kept coming back
LOL That's understandable...
Have you ever seen a Poke Root? It gets bigger every year, and every time it's allowed to put out foliage, it photosynthesizes more food/energy that's stored in the perennial root that gives the plant the energy needed to increase in size and vigor year by year.
Even though the berries are poisonous to people birds are immune to their toxin, and like them very much, the same as they love to little white berries of Poison Ivy. So much so, that they make it a point to plant both every where they s_it.
When we entertained a member of the local Audubon Society, during the post-lecture Q&A someone asked; 'what can we plant to attract more birds to our yard?' the lecturer just smiled and said; "You don't need to plant anything. If you have a clothes line the birds will plant whatever they like."
It took about 5 seconds for that to Sink-In
What I'm saying is, that's the reason we're plagued with the like of Poison Ivy, Poke & Mulberry that seem to plant themselves in every inaccessible fence line, and hedgerow on God's Green Earth