Is it the curse of our materialistic culture to always want what we can’t have—until we think we have too much of it and then begin to throw it away? What about what wildlife want?
My husband went to Germany for a conference in September and took photos of churches, castles, markets and bicyclists. But it was the image he texted me from Botanischer Garten Münster that I liked most of all.
“The botanical garden here has a pokeweed specimen!” he wrote. “Phytolacca americana!”
He knew this would be big news back home, where pokeweed had already attained celebrity status in our household. Over the years the plant has taken center stage in my writings and presentations, a symbol of all we’ve lost in our quest to lawn-ify the continent—and all we might gain by letting our native plants come home again.
The international pokeweed sighting also underscored a sad irony playing out around the globe: We humans are so obsessed with novelty that we make way for exotic plants from overseas by mowing down otherworldly beauties native to our own backyards. And the consequences of our whimsical aesthetic preferences can be dire for wildlife: While pokeweed may have its fans at the Münster Botanical Garden, Germany’s southern neighbors, from Switzerland to Portugal, have declared it an invader of natural habitats. In Hungary it endangers oak-hornbeam forests. In parts of China, it has largely displaced its native cousin there, P. acinosa, sometimes called Himalayan pokeweed.
But what comes around often goes around, and in the U.S. we’re all too familiar with the reverse scenario. Here on the East Coast*, American Pokeweed and other valuable native plants have to duke it out with species introduced from Europe and Asia—purple loosestrife, English ivy, Norway maple, Japanese honeysuckle, Oriental bittersweet, and other plants that have few natural checks and balances outside their original habitats. Unlike humans, who can technically travel around the globe and find food and shelter in most places—after all, we’re all the same species—many plants and animals haven’t had time to adjust.
What’s Good for the Bluebird is Good for the Deer
Yet rather than protect the wild species and plant communities we have left, we often pick and choose who we’ll welcome to our surroundings while bullying away the plants we consider too common, too rangy, too aggressive, or maybe just too wild to fit into our overly controlling notions of what a landscape should be.
Learn more about pokeweed’s wildlife value in my previous tributes: “A Catbird Goes to the Pokeweed Diner” and “Pokeweed, Please Forgive Me.”
Pokeweed bears the brunt of those judgments, and I struggle to understand why. Is it the curse of our materialistic culture to always want what we can’t have—until we think we have too much of it and then begin to throw it away? Never mind that pokeweed is a natural wildlife feeder, nourishing everyone from robins to bluebirds, squirrels to foxes, leopard moths to hummingbirds, opossums to raccoons. Never mind that it’s a top plant for migratory birds along the Eastern corridor. Never mind that deer enjoy the ripe berries of late summer and dried leaves of winter, content to snack on a plant that many gardeners rip out while simultaneously complaining that the animals “eat everything.”
Still, in spite of the lack of respect for one of our most beautiful native plants, a growing number of people are giving pokeweed a chance. Back in 2015, while interviewing sources for my book, I didn’t have as many pokeweed allies to choose from. But one horticultural rebel in particular stood out: Matt Candeais, the man behind the myth-busting In Defense of Plants blog and podcast. Matt admires the plant for its “almost alien” look, he told me, and its bird magnetism.
“Growing up and then later in life, I knew where some big patches were, and those were always good places for bird watching in the fall,” he said. “I would watch birds swamp those plants and just devour berries. So why wouldn’t I want more pokeweed around?”
“Mine, all mine!” said this catbird in our habitat in September. (Video by Nancy Lawson)
Plenty of people have contrarian answers to that question, though I’ve never found their statements to be particularly persuasive or entirely accurate. Pokeweed detractors claim the plant will take over your whole garden or kill your pets and kids. But the same could be said of many plants, whose very survival depends on taking advantage of opportunities and producing chemicals to defend themselves. Whether those traits become harmful to humans or not all depends on context.
It’s true that pokeweed knows how to make itself at home (because, after all, this is its home!), and it may indeed spread rapidly in disturbed patches with few competitors. But where it pops up in forest clearings or among meadow plants, pokeweed settles in alongside them. It’s also true that parts of the plant can be toxic to humans, pets and farm animals. But many hazards exist in our landscapes, including other poisonous plants. Keeping an eye on children and pets—and teaching kids to avoid eating what they’re not familiar with (mushrooms, anyone?)—can go a long way toward preventing mishaps.
Too Wary of Her Wild Ways?
After Will texted me his celebrity sighting, I realized I hadn’t joined the pokeweed paparazzi in a long while. This is not an easy plant to photograph. It’s almost impossible to do justice to its ever-evolving complexities: the chartreuse and hot-pink buds that open into Claymation-style white flowers with green centers; the strongly rooted rhubarb-red stems that grow thick at the bottom and rise to chandelier stems offering royal purple berries; the way the whole plant shape-shifts depending on its place in the light and among its neighbors. A pokeweed under a mature tree might take the form of a baby tree, while another in the sun might look like a large, thicketing shrub. Maybe it’s our inability to capture it all that makes people so wary. What or who is she, exactly, and why we can’t we tame her?
In fact, pre-European cultures and colonists knew the plant more intimately and knew how to safely prepare it, cooking tender leaves for food and using the berry juice for dye. Native peoples made medicinal teas, poultices and washes for various ailments.
I can only imagine how pokeweed appeared to them when they came upon it in the wild, surrounded by neighbors as part of intact plant communities. How did it behave when it had a place to belong? What would it look like nestled in among plants and animals it had evolved around for centuries, as opposed to popping up out of a roadside ditch someone forgot to mow or from the cracks of a vacant lot about to be turned into an apartment complex? As I ponder the question, I admire the little pokeweed keeping company with a birdbath by the road, the lanky pokeweed befriending the ailing ash tree behind the patio, and the thicketing pokeweed stitching together bare spots among the Joe Pye, winterberries, and giant sunflowers that border the meadow garden. And I welcome them all back home.
*Before nurturing P. americana, be sure to check wildflower.org and local sources to find out if it’s native to your state. Though indigenous to the Eastern U.S., some West Coast locations report its invasiveness in natural habitats.
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