What is this plant?...

[arcadesdude]

I saw this one on my way to a cache (which is so well hidden I didn't find it and wondered what it is called. I would guess 'blackberry' from the black berries but now that I've done a google image search for "blackberry plant" I'm pretty sure it is not that at all. So what is it?

 

Description: Red "trunk" and "branches" on a bushlike plant with long cylindrical berries on it.

 

Picture:

 

 

(Picture (81k) is at a slow server at:

http://geocaching.port5.com/images/blackberry.jpg )

 

--Ricky Cobb

[umc]

Check your pic link

 

______________________________________________________________________________________

Coming Around, New Owner Of a Garmin GPS V Received on 10-03-02

[+wcgreen]

Maybe mulberry?

 

Mulberry info and picture

 

If I knew where in the world this cache and plant are, it would help. I'm assuming North America.

 

--

wcgreen

Wendy Chatley Green

[arcadesdude]

Sorry, I suppose I've caught that "UScentricity bug"

 

You are correct the plant is in the north eastern United States -- Tuckahoe, Maryland USA to be exact. It's fall here now.

 

I don't think it is mulberry because the way the berries on this plant go out from the central part and the trunk of the tree/bush is completly reddish in color, a great contrast to the green and brown nearby it of other plants.

 

--Ricky Cobb

[+welch]

arcadesdude, is the pic you have of the plant your trying to identify? or of what you know the the plant is not?

 

[arcadesdude]

Yes the picture is the plant I'm trying to identify.

 

"or of what you know the the plant is not? "

 

I think you mean try to identify the plant by process of elimination. Any way to identify this plant would be acceptable, it's interesting because it's different from all the plants around it and so it "stands out".

 

--Ricky Cobb

[+Planet]

DON'T EAT IT!!!!!!!!!

http://www.vet.purdue.edu/depts/addl/toxic/plant40.htm

It grows around CT a lot. Back in high school as an art project I made ink out of the berries and painted a picture with it. The teacher thought that was a good idea and said I should have taken it further and mixed it with something to make it last. I wasn't taking chemistry so it stopped there, but I noticed it's called inkberry too.

 

Cache you later,

Planet

 

[This message was edited by Planet on October 24, 2002 at 11:54 AM.]

 

[This message was edited by Planet on October 24, 2002 at 11:59 AM.]

[arcadesdude]

I'm pretty sure that's the plant in the picture. Good job on the ID.

 

I didn't know you could use the seeds/berries for ink that's interesting.

 

For a weed it looks aestheticly pleasing enough.

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Planet:

DON'T EAT IT!!!!!!!!!

---

 

That's good advice for any plant you can't absolutely be sure is safe to eat

 

Thanks again for figuring out what kind of plant it is!

 

--Ricky Cobb

[+The BeeGees]

If you're trying to weed it out of your garden make sure you get the WHOLE root. If you don't, it keeps coming back and the root gets bigger & bigger. I dug up a root the size of a football once.

[+welch]

quote:

---

Originally posted by arcadesdude:

 

"or of what you know the the plant is not? "

 

I think you mean try to identify the plant by process of elimination. Any way to identify this plant would be acceptable, it's interesting because it's different from all the plants around it and so it "stands out".

 

--Ricky Cobb

---

 

no, i dont think thats what i meant, but anyways thanks for clearing that up.

 

[+T-storm]

Or as you might hear it called in the southern US, poke salad or poke salat. My grandfather loved to eat it. It DOES contain toxins, but they are reduced by cooking the leaves well and eating younger leaves rather than mature leaves. For info see: http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/newspaper/june21b02.html

 

T-storm

 

http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

[+SamLowrey]

quote:

---

Originally posted by T-storm:

Or as you might hear it called in the southern US, poke salad or poke salat. My grandfather loved to eat it. It DOES contain toxins, but they are reduced by cooking the leaves well and eating younger leaves rather than mature leaves. For info see: http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/newspaper/june21b02.html

 

T-storm

 

http://www.cordianet.com/geocaching

 

I figured there had to be a way to eat it or there wouldn't be the song "Poke Salad Annie."

[+bitbrain]

When I was a kid, we'd pick the berries & throw them at each other when we were playing in the woods. Those purple stains are a mother's nightmare.

 

- "This river don?t go to Aintry. You done taken a wrong turn." -

[+Gliderguy]

I concur it is pokeweed. I understand you dont want to eat the berries at all, but as said before, properly prepared, the leaves can be edible.

 

I spent a few summers during college doing research assistant work for the University of Arkansas rice research center. I once saw some pokeweed and asked the same question of the weed science guru there (no, weed science does not involve the DEA in any way, thank you...)

He identified it as pokeweed, although the version I got to see was much smaller, maybe 2ft high or so.

[+Sluggo]

Well, I'm laughing my butt off.

 

I loved the quote from Dr. Wease in the article;

quote:

---

Why would you want to eat something that we know is toxic when there are so many other non-toxic plants out there we can eat?"

---

I guess Dr. Wease didn't grow up poor in the deep south. Maybe she should change over to the study of poverty science and help poor people find thaose "other non-toxic plants out there" that they can eat for free.

 

I've been convinced for a long time that the flying saucers are real and interplanetary. In other words we are being watched by beings from outer space. -Albert M. Chop, NASA

[arcadesdude]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Gliderguy:

...He identified it as pokeweed, although the version I got to see was much smaller, maybe 2ft high or so.

---

 

This bush in the picture is taller than me! I think it's about 6' high!

 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sluggo:

I guess Dr. Wease didn't grow up poor in the deep south. Maybe she should change over to the study of poverty science and help poor people find thaose "other non-toxic plants out there" that they can eat for free.

---

 

Anything in moderation is ok, I'm sure a small amount of the leaves properly cooked (keyword) would not hurt since many have eaten it traditionally.

 

I wonder what it tastes like. The one article mentions it's eaten like spinage (yuk!) but it's called 'salad'...

 

--Ricky Cobb

[+creagerstonefamily]

That looks just like elderberries (Sambucus simpsonii) to me. Compare those berries to the ones at this page. It grows as thick as the dickens. Come back in the spring and you'll see some beautiful sprigs of tiny white flowers.

 

When I was about 16, my dad, mom, myself, and some of their friends gathered about twenty garbage bags full of berry laden stems from a fence row at a school that my Dad was hired to clear. Dad washed the berries and ran them through a food mill as we pulled them off the stems.

 

It made about five gallons of elderberry wine. Took a ton of sugar, but it was quite good. Dad never bothered with it again since it was so much work.

 

That is definitely not what anyone in my family would call "pokeweed", but who knows, maybe it's a regional thing. It's been decades since I helped picked leaves for poke salad.

 

Thanks for the post. I never knew Dad was risking the wrath of the spirits by clearing those bushes out until I poked around on the web a bit because of it!

 

Sassafras is also poisonous. The carcinogen in it is particularly nasty according to the FDA. It's illegal to sell sassafras in the US. However, if I had a dollar for every 90+ year old southerner who drinks a cup of it a day...

 

[This message was edited by CreagerStone Family on October 25, 2002 at 12:45 AM.]

[+Planet]

The elderberry leave looks sturdier and more like a bay leaf or laurel leaf, whereas the pokeweed (which I am very familiar with) has a more rippled edged leaf and a purple tint in the branches. Also, I think the elderberries themselves have a stronger skin and poke weed berries squish (scientific terminology ) really easily. I am pretty darned positive that we are identifying pokeweed, but I will ask my Master Gardener friend Theodoric of York, the Midieval Barber (his unregistered geocaching name) for his opinion next time he comes over. Poke weed grows all over here and is pretty hard to get rid of.

 

Cache you later,

Planet

[+DutchBoy]

Yes, it is pokeweed. I have them on my property. They are pretty neat, but can be toxic. I have taught my kids not to mess with them, because of the stain, and toxicity. I leave them because the provide food for the birds. Mockingbirds and bluebirds eat the berries with no problem. They go wild over them

[Cholo]

Those look like Eastern Dingleberries. They are quite common in the Hershey, Pa area. Tho not fatal, they cause gastric distress when ingested, hence: the Hershey squirts. They are a profitable crop. After being dried they are sold in Latin American countries for use as automobile window ornaments. Southerners may not have problems with eating the leaves, but they also eat chitlins.

[+shawhh]

definitely pokeweed! young tender leaves are edible and were eagerly sought in the spring by southern settlers craving greens and their vitamins after a winter of lack. berries and stems are toxic. berries provide long lasting food source for birds and mammals such as racoons and are available throughout the winter down here in n.c. agree that stains from berries are tough to remove from light colored clothing. harry