'By no means void of beauty'. Pokeweed, Phytolacca americana, Oude Hortus, Utrecht, The Netherlands

            On my way south to Limburg, I stopped by the Autumnal Old Hortus Botanicus of Utrecht to look at its delights (and to taste their coffee and very fresh apple pie).
My delight with these colorful Pokeweed Berries was second only to that of Curtis's Botanical Magazine of 1806 in a great understatement: 'By no means void of beauty'. Or Abraham Munting's (1583-1658) somewhat stern enthusiasm for this plant in his Groningen Hortus Botanicus: 'een schoon en beziens-waardig gewas' (a beautful plant worth seeing). Munting uses the Latin name by which it was then known, Blitum americanum. He also gives a Dutch synonym (found, too, in Dodonaeus):  Meyer uyt America (why 'Meyer' or 'Maier' I have no idea. Someone?). Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (1656-1708) designated it as a 'Phytolacca'. The 'Poke' or 'Poake' is apparently cognate (according to the OED) with an Algonquin (native American) word for the plant, Apoke, Uppówoc, Puccoon, Poughkone and such; first used in English ca. 1612.
This Pokeberry was introduced from the Americas to Europe already in the sixteenth century and it was soon widely cultivated.
Sometimes its leaves were boiled like spinach, and an English encyclopedia of the early nineteenth century amusingly  writes that it is 'said to have been used in Portugal to redden Portwine', but of course not in England. The idea alone... By 1800 Virginia Pokeweed was already naturalised in Spain, Portugal, Barbary, Zante and Greece: don't you just love those geographical designations! It's been used as a cure for cancer (around 1800). 
The creamy white blossoms are pretty, but I prefer the exuberance of these Deep Purple Berries and their bright peduncles and pedicels.
   

Taken in: Nederland / Utrecht / Utrecht (show map)

Taken on: November 8, 2013

Tags:

Phytolacca americana

Phytolacca decandra

Abraham Munting

Rembertus Dodonaeus

Oude Hortus, Utrecht, The Netherlands

'Curtis's Botanical Magazine

Pokeweed

Blitum americanum

Meyer uyt America

Virginia Pokeweed

Blink Again

Puccoon

Poughkone

Apoke

Uppówoc

OED

Algonquins

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