E-mail me better aL_compost SWWAZ8

It grows all over our property. No problem. I have never tried to eat the young shoots though........too scared to try it! The birds sure love the berries.....especially robins and catbirds.
(Remember that song "Poke Salad Annie"? :)

It is pokesalad or pokesalat depending on your pref. Birds love the berries. They eat before they are fully ripe. If you watch closely you will see birds latch onto the berry with their bill and flutter their wings to provide extra pressure causing berry to release.

There was a NPR segment several years ago about poke and there was a poke festival in Tennessee? where the older plants were eaten. I would not try eating unless you have help in prep.

I watched Mourning doves eat the berries about a week ago, and yesterday watched a mockingbird and a red-bellied woodpecker do the same. Animals that evolve with poisonous plants can become immune to the poison. Monarch butterflies' caterpillars, for instance, aren't bothered at all by milkweed.