Important: Safety Warning
This page states that certain wild plants are safe to eat. Its identifications and edibility claims are more than a century old and in some cases simply wrong, and deadly look-alikes exist for many edible species. Never eat a wild plant on the strength of this text.
In addition, this page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Pokeweed
the Phytolacca decandra, a North American branching herbaceous plant, order Phytolaccacex, which is naturalized in some parts of Europe and Asia. Its root acts as a powerful emetic and cathartic, but its use is attended with narcotic effects. Its berries are said to possess the same quality; they are employed as a remedy for chronic and syphilitic rheumatism, and for allaying syphiloid pains. The leaves are extremely acrid, but the young shoots, which lose this quality by boiling in water, are sometimes eaten in the United States as asparagus.