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POLKSALAD at my house

1995 Summer
POLKSALAD

Polk Salad
("The song: Poke salid annie, the gator's got your granny.")
But it was not the gator that got annie, it was the polk salid...

Also known as poke, pokeberry, pokeroot, inkberry
genus Phytolacca

Every year I grow one of these plants. The berries tast ok.
The berries produce the most richest "red" color that I have ever seen. Supper red!
I tried mixing the red juice into a white base paint ounce. But the base over powered the color.
If you are married and wish to remain so, do not track berry stains inside the house. Stains are vivid and dramatic, just like your wife will be.

Smooth, but ruffled, edge on the leaf is normal despite the effects of artistic bugs.

I pulled one of these Pokes up and found a tuber type of root. I ate it. Big mistake!
I ended up at Enloe Hospital Emergency Room. My face was chalk white, and I had dry heaves that could contort a statue into a ball of rubber bands. Poke Salid has got to be the most expensive dish I have ever had. Enloe hospital billed my about $600, and a bounch of friends called me stupid, but they were only over-dramatizing what the doctor had said.

The ripe berries are still good and cause no problems.
But just to be on the safe side, I think I better grow something else... like Oleander.

2007.05.21
Upon cutting, trunk usses white substance, and leaves taste as if they contain similar chemicals as milk weed. Tube does not have water inside: I poored the water inside for no reason.

2007.06.11
POLK BERRIES
The fruit matures inside the flower at the same time flowers are present on the bunch.


Both pictures 2007.06.11 Same day, same plant
A damn tuber simular to this small one put me in the hospital...