I am still having some difficulty using alternate programs and getting my photographs to upload properly.
The 2 photos in this post were supposed to go up with the poem yesterday, but refused to cooperate. Today the oak-leaf hydrangea above imported really tiny and gets all pixelated when attempts are made to enlarge the photo in place.
Loved the look of these pokeweed berries so wanted to include them. Too bad the berries are poisonous to humans. Birds however can eat the berries with impunity.
Pokeweed berries do have other uses, yielding a red ink or dye, which was once used by American Indians to decorate their horses. Many letters written home during the American Civil War were written in pokeberry ink; the writing in these surviving letters appears brown. A rich brown dye can be made by soaking fabrics in fermenting berries in a hollowed-out pumpkin.
Pokeweeds are used as food plants by the caterpillars of some species moths and butterflies including Giant Leopard Moth.
Carina
(And for some stupid reason my name does not want to change to normal font, so rest assured I am not shouting at you, just dealing with some unfamiliar computer programs)
Further information from my niece. She is a herbalist that knows her plants but apparently has an aversion to capital letters.
ReplyDeletehi carina! i was checkin out your blog, couldn't post there but: i have a comment on the poke berries, just to cause trouble: they have definetely been used for pie back in the day, so i'm pretty sure they won't cause instant death. also i have eaten them and not died. if i remember correctly, it is the seeds that have the nasty bits ...in em, so if you eat one, don't chew. in herbalism, poke root is known a very strong lymphatic, traditionally used against tumors. some foragers i've met eat a berry every day in season, and folks used to store roots in their root cellars and eat the resulting shoots as a winter pot vegetable. you have to boil them in several changes of water though. all i can say is there's nothing like a grocery store to get your food...See More