# Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) *Poke, poke root, garget, pigeon-berry, scoke; *pocan* of the Virginian tribes; *Phytolacca decandra* of the older books* **Known today as.** *Phytolacca americana*, the American pokeweed: a tall perennial of hedges and roadsides, purple-stemmed, with clusters of black berries full of crimson juice. Kind: Plant Poisoning: Gastrointestinal irritants (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/gastrointestinal) Toxic: yes > **Caution.** Poisonous: the root, the mature leaves, and the berries purge violently, and a woman who ate stir-fried leaves died within thirty-three hours. ## What was it used for? A slow emetic and purge, ten to thirty grains of the dried root; the root in lard as an ointment for scald-head, the itch, and old ulcers, and roasted as a poultice to bring felons and tumours to a head; the berries steeped in gin for chronic rheumatism. ## What does modern science say? The poison is in its saponins and oxalates, and the usual harm is vomiting and diarrhoea. Of 1,669 exposures reported to Kentucky’s poison centre over twenty years, most were small children who had eaten the berries, most came to no more than that, and none died. A woman of fifty who ate about 150 grams of stir-fried leaves died of shock and organ failure within thirty-three hours. ## Pharmacognosy and toxicology - **esculentoside A**: a saponin; its metabolite phytolaccagenin was what the blood of the fatal case chiefly carried - **phytolaccasaponins B, E, and G**: the toxic components isolated from the root - **pokeweed antiviral protein**: a ribosome-inactivating protein of the plant’s own defences, studied in the laboratory - **potassium nitrate**: the root is remarkably rich in potassium, part of it as the nitrate **Mechanism.** Saponins and oxalates: the usual harm is to the gut, vomiting and diarrhoea, with pain and swelling where the plant touches the skin; the one fatal case went on to acidosis, shock, injury to the heart, and a failure of clotting. **Dose.** Ten to thirty grains of the dried root purged the old patients; about 150 grams of stir-fried leaves killed a woman of fifty in thirty-three hours. Most poison-centre cases are children who ate a few berries, and most are mild. **Standing.** Root and berries were official in the United States Pharmacopoeia in King’s day; the modern literature on the plant is toxicological, and its antiviral protein is a subject of laboratory research. ## What lore surrounds it? The berry’s crimson juice is the plant’s lore. Its name is Greek *phyton*, plant, and *lacca*, lake, for the colour. The juice was used to deepen the red wines of Portugal and France until, Bigelow says, the governments had to interfere; the Turks, by Landerer’s account, tinted sweetmeats with it; and Braconnot found that a few drops of lime-water turn it yellow and the least acid turns it purple again, a test four times as sensitive as litmus, though it must be used within hours of making. No mordant will hold the colour on cloth, and with urine it dyes blue. The leaves, Preston noticed in 1884, give a faint phosphorescent light in the dark in autumn, which Schär traced to an oxidizing enzyme. Pigeons that feed on the berries purge those who eat the pigeons; and cattle with inflamed udders, the “garget,” were dosed with the plant, which gave it one of its names. ## What did the older authorities say? **Jacob Bigelow.** Found the root, properly prepared, as sure an emetic as ipecacuanha, ten grains rarely staying on the stomach; slow to work, an hour or two, and apt to go on longer than other emetics, though an opiate checked it. He traced the plant’s oldest account to Parkinson’s *Theatrum Botanicum* of 1640, where it is “Solanum magnum Virginianum rubrum,” and took Poke for a shortening of Pocan, its name in Virginia a century before. **C. S. Rafinesque.** Calls it a valuable active plant: the root an emetic and cathartic without spasms, ten to thirty grains of the dry powder, safe and powerful; the young shoots eaten like asparagus, the old leaves an acrid purgative; the berries’ juice a purple stain and ink that fades, and with urine for mordant a fixed blue dye. **Charles F. Millspaugh.** Reports that the aborigines handed its uses down to domestic practice, valuing it as an emetic and for gonorrhoeal and syphilitic rheumatism; that the early American writers held it fully equal to ipecacuanha, though often narcotic; and that of the poke-berry pie frugal housewives were said to make, “discretion has, however, always overruled valor, and the much-thought-of pie is still unmade and uneaten.” **King’s American Dispensatory.** Lists the root and the berries as official in the United States Pharmacopoeia, and the plant among the Eclectics’ chief alteratives, for chronic rheumatism, the skin, and above all the glands: “No other remedy equals phytolacca in acute mastitis.” It warns that the berries, though poisonous, lose their toxic qualities somewhat when cooked, “and some have gone so far as to make pies of the fruit—a practice which, however, should be condemned.” **Mrs. M. Grieve.** Notes that the root was often used to adulterate belladonna, and is told apart by the concentric rings of its wood; that in Portugal the colouring of port with the berries’ juice was discontinued because it spoilt the taste; and that the stain “would make a useful dye if a way of fixing it were found.” ## Sources - Bigelow, J. (1817). *American Medical Botany*, vol. 1, “Phytolacca decandra. Poke,” pp. 39–50. Internet Archive, mobot31753000788213. - Rafinesque, C. S. (1828). *Medical Flora, or Manual of the Medical Botany of the United States of North America*, vol. 2, pp. 251–252. Internet Archive, b21468710_0002. - Millspaugh, C. F. (1887). *American Medicinal Plants*, vol. 2, no. 139, “Phytolacca decandra.” Internet Archive, americanmedicina02mill_0. - Felter, H. W., & Lloyd, J. U. (1898). *King’s American Dispensatory*, “Phytolacca.” As transcribed at Henriette’s Herbal Homepage, henriettes-herb.com. - Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Poke Root.” As published on botanical.com. - Woolum, J. A., Akpunonu, P., Johnson, M., & Webb, A. N. (2022). Human exposures to *Phytolacca americana* in Kentucky. *Toxicon*. doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2022.106962 - Xu, H., et al. (2025). Description of a fatal case of acute *Phytolacca americana* poisoning due to leaf ingestion in China. *Toxicon*. doi:10.1016/j.toxicon.2025.108476 - Narita, Y., Shinohara, H., Nakajima, K., & Nagaoka, Y. (2025). Isolation of toxic components from *Phytolacca americana* and establishment of simultaneous analysis method of their components. *Shokuhin Eiseigaku Zasshi* 66. doi:10.3358/shokueishi.66.100 - Audet, A., Chivers, J. A., & Hudak, K. A. (2025). A novel cysteine protease from *Phytolacca americana* cleaves pokeweed antiviral protein generating bioactive fragments. *Plants*. doi:10.3390/plants14152441 --- *Pokeweed.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/pokeweed Historical description, not medical advice.