In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:
On 21/10/2019 17:59, Another John wrote:

Thanks Martin - I thought you were on t something there when I saw the
first picture of pokeweed, with its purple stalks ... but it's not that.
Thank goodness! Sounds like a right nasty plant -- I like this bit from
the Wikipedia entry : "The leaves and stems of very young plants can
both be eaten, but must be cooked, usually boiled three times in fresh
water each time." It always gives me pause for thought, to reflect
that for most of human history, people have eaten (had to eat) whatever
they could find ... and that some poor sods found out the hard way how
their descendants needed to prepare certain foods!

It isn't all that bad and is quite ornamental. I got one spontaneously
appear in my garden when I lived in Belgium. It even set seed so I could
keep on growing it. Not at all invasive and quite a bit less toxic than
some of the other exotics that I like to grow.

Yes - people get uptight about a few poisonous plants, but there are
generally more poisonous ones that they ignore, and they aren't really
much of a risk, anyway. Laburnum is generally ignored, but is one of
the worst, as its seeds look exactly like mung beans.

I did get twitchy when someone brought a small child when I was growing
Gloriosa rothschildiana, though ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.