Poke: A Weed No More
Traditional Herbalist Whitewolf shares the magic of a common weed.

Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) is an exceptionally beautiful and powerful Native American medicinal herb. Unfortunately, many people perceive Poke to be a nuisance weed or a dangerous poisonous plant. Others know it in the form of "Poke Sallet," a traditional pot-herb that, when properly cooked, is both safe and delicious. Early Tribal healers and the 19th-century American Eclectic Physicians who popularized Native botanicals knew Poke as a powerful lymphatic system stimulant and medicine for arthritis and various skin diseases. Today, herbalists use Poke cautiously for similar conditions and modern researchers are investigating its antiviral, anticancer, antifungal, antirheumatic, and immune stimulant properties.

It is a mistake to think of this powerful plant as a useless "weed" - rather it is the source of many wonderful gifts to those who learn to use it with respect and understanding.

Poke is actually one of the easier wild plants of our area to identify. For a non-woody perennial, it gets big...really big. A happy mature Pokeweed can be 10 - 12 feet tall , although most grow from 3 to 6 feet or so. The stems are large, tough, filled with hollow chambers inside, and unmistakably magenta. Phytolacca bears large, thin, emerald-green leaves and upright clusters of small white flowers which droop as they mature into bunches of deeply purple, almost black berries. Inside these berries is a bright pink juice which has been used for ink, skin paint, and a temporary dye. Poke is well described in many field guides; if you are interested in working with this plant, make sure you have positively identified it.

Poke Sallet
Many mountain folks keep up the tradition of using young Poke sprouts as a spring tonic food known as "Poke Sallet." Sallet is an old English word that means "cooked greens," and should not be mistanken for "salad"; in fact, a great many cases of Pokeweed poisoning result from this linguistic mistake. When Poke leaves are eaten raw, they cause a characteristically severe but self-limiting gastroenteritis with repeated vomiting and diarrhea. The chemicals responsible for this reaction are known as triterpene saponins, and they are both broken down by the heat of cooking, and leached out into the cooking water. It is also important to pick the Poke sprouts when they are no more than 6 - 8 inches tall; if too mature, they contain a greater amount of toxins and can be unsafe.

Properly prepared, however, Poke Sallet is delicious, tasting like a somewhat wilder version of asparagus; it is also rich in vitamins and minerals, as are wild food plants in general. Here is a foolproof recipe for cooking Poke sprouts which will remove the saponins and provide you with an excellent tonic food. Note that in the Southern Appalachians, Poke sprouts are an early spring treat, being available in April or early May depending on elevation. Do not pick overly mature sprouts or leaves for Sallet! Although some people are less sensitive to the toxins and can get away with this, others become ill.

Put two pots of water to boil on the stove. One pot should be the right size for cooking your sprouts and the other should be about three times as big. The second pot is your resevoir of boiling water. When both pots are at a boil, drop the sprouts into the cooking pot and boil them for one minute. Drain away this first water (use a colander), then refill the cooking pot with fresh hot water from the resevoir pot and boil sprouts again for one minute. Throw out this second water too, refill the cooking pot once again, and boil the sprouts in this third change of water for a minimum of 15 minutes. Some folks recommend a longer cooking time here, but I have personally found 15 minutes to be adequate if you have changed the water twice already. When done, the cooked sprouts can be dressed in any way you would dress asparagus, or eaten plain to enjoy their unique flavor undiluted.

Phytolacca Medicine The Eclectic Physicians, a group of botanically-inclined practitioners working in the 19th and early 20th centuries, left an extensive literature on the clinical use of Native American plants including Phytolacca. One of the prominent Eclectic authors was Dr. Finely Ellingwood, who reviewed Poke in his definitive work American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy. His "Specific Symptomatology" calling for the use of this medicine is as follows:

The most direct action of this agent is in inflammation of glandular structures, especially of the lymphatic glands. It is directly indicated in irritation, inflammation and ulceration of mucous membranes in rheumatic subjects, sanious ulcers [those yielding a thin, fetid discharge of pus mixed with serum or blood], scabies, tinea capitis [a fungal infection of the scalp, also known as ringworm], sycopsis [a morbid ulcer or growth on the skin, with a figlike appearance], psoriasis, favus [a contagious skin disease, characterized by pustules and resembling the texture of a honeycomb], noli me tangere [an eroding ulceration of the face], and all skin diseases. It is especially valuable in the squamous variety of skin diseases.

Phytolacca was also known to the Eclectics as a powerful remedy in cases of mastitis, breast cysts, and breast cancers as well as other types of cancers. It was rightfully considered to be a potent medicine that was cautiously used to help correct serious health problems. Today, practitioners use homeopathic preparations of Phytolacca, or small doses of the tincture or extract made from the root or berries. You can't buy Poke extracts in the store, as the FDA considers them too toxic for casual use by the general public, but you can learn how to use this medicine under the guidance of an experienced herbalist or naturopathic physician. Modern practitioners use Poke in cases of acute or chronic infection as an immune stimulant and lymphatic system alterative, as an effective anti-inflammatory in rheumatoid arthritis and similar conditions, and as part of a treatment for breast conditions including mastitis, cysts, and cancers. It is also still employed for "ringworm" and other fungal conditions of the skin.

Pokeberries are very interesting in that they contain good medicine and fewer toxins than other parts of the plant - with the exception of their seeds. Poke seeds are poisonous and should not be eaten! However, some Appalachian old-timers will swallow one or two dried berries whole, not crunching up the seeds, as a tonic for "rheumatism." They say that the seeds won't hurt you if you don't break them open. I personally spit out the seeds whenever I use Poke berries, just to be safe. Each berry contains 8 - 13 tiny black seeds, making it an exercise in attention to eat them. As an experiment last year, I ate 25 berries at once, carefully spitting out each little seed and swallowing the juice, flesh, and skins. After 10 berries the tip of my toungue had a moderately burnt feeling; but other than that, I was fine. Reports of Pokeberry toxicity in the scientific literature often do not distinguish between the berries and the seeds, which is why you will find assertions that Pokeberries are poisonous and possibly fatal. The only well-documented report of a fatality from Poke that I have yet found - after 6 months of research - is a case of a child dying after the ingestion of "grape juice" made from large amounts of crushed berries - ones with the seeds broken open.

Pokeweed Toxicology
As part of my research for a large monograph on Phytolacca, I have extensively reviewed the scientific literature regarding Poke toxicology and poisoning. Although many general plant books indulge in what I call "Pokeweed Paranoia," and repeat that Pokeweed can be fatal, the truth is that Poke, when properly used, is both safe and effective. It can also be a serious poison when ingested improperly, but is far less poisonous than some other plants and many pharmaceutical drugs. A study published in 1995 by Krenzelok and Provost in the Journal of Natural Toxins analyzed information from American Poison Information Centers over a recent ten-year period. They found that Poke was the seventh most frequently ingested poisonous plant, but that 65.3 % of these exposures resulted in "no effect," 5.8 % in a "minor effect," and 0.4 % in a "moderate effect"; there were no fatalities reported. Contrast this to the recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (Lazarou, 1998) which informs us that more than 100,000 hospitalized patients die and more than 2 million are seriously injured every year in the U. S. from adverse reactions to properly administered drugs. When considered in context, Poke's toxicity becomes less of a scary boogey-man and more of a reminder to "proceed with caution." For an extensive review of Pokeweed toxicology, see the website at http://www.unca.edu/~lnleivan/toolkit.html.

Pokeweed is my Friend
In traditional healing, practitioners work with both the bodies and spirits of the plants. I have learned to see Pokeweed as one of the Grandmothers, powerful healing spirits with medicine that must be well understood and respected before use. Grandmother Poke can help us to become aware of the blockages in the lymphatic and energetic channels of our bodies and well as in the pathways of our spirits. She is a wise warrior who appears to me in dreams as a large white or red horse, bringing confidence and assurance while helping to guide me through fearful situations. Of course, a plant spirit does not necessarily appear in the same way to different people. If you want to establish a relationship with this Grandmother, I suggest finding a Poke plant in a quiet place and sitting to meditate with it for as long as possible. Bring the plant a gift (a coin, tobacco, water in a drought...) and let it know your intentions and your requests. If you persist in your respectful efforts, Grandmother Poke will reward you with insight and healing. As thanks, you can spread her seeds about or distribute the seeds of Pokeweed knowledge - and help the people to remember that Poke is no longer a weed but a powerful healing gift from the Mother Earth and the Great Spirit.

Originally, this article appeared in New Life Journal's Fall 1999 issue. This article is © 1999 Lisa Leivan and New Life Journal and is not to be reprinted without the written permission of New Life Journal.