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What's blooming in Bath, Highland
BY CHARLES GARRATT • STAFF WRITER
 | | From summer flowers come fall berries and among the most colorful are the dark purple berries of pokeweed. The poisonous berries add color to the brown grasses of roadsides and fields. (Recorder photo by Charles Garratt) |
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WARM SPRINGS - The small, greenish-white flowers of pokeweed often go unnoticed in mid-summer but the dark purple berries are known to every child growing up in the Highlands.
The attractive berries are very tempting for children and rural parents warn each new generation away from the poisonous fruits. The berries, leaves, stem and roots are all poisonous to mammals. Birds can eat the berries without harm.
Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana, is native to North America and is known by a variety of names including poke and poke sallet. A popular song of the late sixties spread "poke salad" from the culture of the south across the country. Poke sallet generally refers to the young shoots of pokeweed, which are boiled in a number of changes of water to reduce the toxins.
The plants can grow to seven feet tall and the large racemes of berries curve downward under the weight of the growing fruits. Pokeweed is a perennial and can be difficult to control once established. The carrot-like taproot is also poisonous.
 | | Millboro Ruritan Club member Steve Weintraub, left, prepares to share the ribbon-cutting event on Saturday, Sept. 29, at the club's new nature trail with Chase Halterman, center (the son of Ruritan Steve Halterman and his wife Norma), and Ruritan Arne Peterson. Weintraub emphasized that while this was a Ruritan project, preparation of the trail and its improvements - including a wooden bridge, numerous benches and signs to identify trees and plant life - were supported by contributions from the following: Marian Addy; Dexter Bird of Craft Engineering Associates in Tidewater who designed the attractive bridge over a small pond; the Virginia Hot Springs Preservation Trust; Donald Kennedy of Kennedy Construction of Millboro; Mike Stinespring of Stinespring Excavating in Millboro Springs; and Eric Spencer of Spencer Home Center in Lexington. The trail entrance is located across the road from Millboro Elementary School. Principal Martha Reish could not attend the event, but was represented by teacher Joy George. Weintraub read comments from a letter Reish sent him in which she expressed her pleasure at having the nature walk available to students and said they have already used it, including for the physical education classes. The trail also offers residents a walking path besides narrow town roads. (Recorder photo by Gina Hamilton) |
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Creative children quickly discover the ink like properties of poke berry juice. Adults have used the berries for ink and die. One name for the plant is "inkberry." The Declaration of Independence was written with ink made from fermented pokeberries. The text of letters and documents written with pokeberry ink is brown.
While eating poke sallet is a spring tradition in the south, many authorities recommend against eating any part of the plant. But canned poke sallet is still available in southern grocery stores and many southerners credit their long lives to eating poke.
Poke has long been used for a variety of medicinal purposes. The old saying "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" might apply to poke concoctions. Small amounts are used in tinctures and other mixtures for arthritis, acne and other ailments.
Mountain ash and elderberry fruits often join pokeweed in adding fall color to the Highlands. The late freeze this spring killed most of the mountain ash flowers and both the birds and sightseers will miss the large clumps of red berries.
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