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About American Pokeweed
American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) is a bold native perennial with large green leaves, thick reddish-purple stems, dangling flower clusters, and glossy dark purple berries. It can grow into a tall, shrub-like herbaceous plant, often reaching 4 to 10 feet in a single growing season. By late summer, its arching stems and inky berries make it one of the most recognizable plants along woodland edges and old fields.
The flowers are small, white to greenish-white or faintly pink, and grow in long racemes that later develop into clusters of berries. The berries ripen from green to deep purple-black and contain dark red juice that has historically been used as a dye. The stems are often smooth, thick, and vividly colored, making the whole plant look dramatic even before the fruit appears.
Pokeweed is beautiful and valuable for wildlife, but it should be handled with care. All parts of the plant are poisonous to people and pets, especially the roots and berries. In a coloring page, it is best presented as a fascinating native wildlife plant rather than an edible plant.
Where American Pokeweed Grows
American pokeweed is native to eastern and central North America and occurs in many open or partly shaded habitats. It is commonly found in woodland edges, fencerows, pastures, roadsides, recently cleared areas, vacant lots, thickets, waste places, and naturalized gardens. It often appears where soil has been disturbed and sunlight reaches the ground.
This plant grows best in rich, moist, well-drained soil, but it is very adaptable. It can grow in full sun to part shade and can tolerate short dry periods once established. Because it has a large fleshy taproot and self-seeds readily, it can become weedy or difficult to remove in small gardens.
In a native plant setting, pokeweed is best suited to informal wildlife areas, woodland edges, hedgerows, and places where its size and self-seeding habit can be managed. It pairs naturally with goldenrods, asters, blackberries, elderberry, Virginia creeper, native grasses, and other edge-habitat plants.
Pollinators It Supports
American pokeweed flowers attract small pollinators, especially syrphid flies and halictid bees, also known as sweat bees. Many sources describe the visitors by group rather than by exact species, but good representative insects to show on a coloring page include the margined calligrapher hover fly (Toxomerus marginatus), small sweat bees in the genus Lasioglossum, and sweat bees such as Halictus ligatus or Agapostemon virescens. These insects can easily use the plant’s small, open flowers.
Pokeweed is also a host plant for the giant leopard moth (Hypercompe scribonia), whose woolly caterpillars may feed on the leaves. The dead hollow stems can also provide nesting or overwintering habitat for stem-nesting native bees if the stems are left standing instead of cut to the ground.
The berries are one of pokeweed’s biggest wildlife gifts. Birds such as northern mockingbirds, northern cardinals, mourning doves, gray catbirds, American robins, brown thrashers, eastern bluebirds, cedar waxwings, and pileated woodpeckers may eat the fruits. Mammals such as gray foxes, raccoons, opossums, and squirrels may also use the fruit. For a coloring page, pokeweed pairs well with a hover fly, sweat bee, giant leopard moth caterpillar, cardinal, catbird, or mockingbird.
Coloring Tips
Color the stems magenta, reddish-purple, burgundy, or deep pink-purple. Young stems may be greener, while mature stems often become richly colored. Use darker shading along one side of each stem to make the plant look sturdy and three-dimensional.
The leaves are bright to deep green, usually large, oval to lance-shaped, and smooth-edged. Add pale green veins and darker green shadows near the leaf bases. The flowers can be white, cream, pale green, or faint pink.
The berries are the most dramatic part of the page. Color young berries green, ripening berries pink to reddish-purple, and mature berries dark purple, blue-black, or almost black. Add shiny highlights to make them look glossy. For the background, place American pokeweed along a woodland edge, fencerow, old field, or sunny thicket. To show wildlife value, include a northern cardinal, gray catbird, margined calligrapher hover fly, sweat bee, or giant leopard moth caterpillar near the plant.