Big leaves, magenta branches, and clusters of dark berries make pokeweed a striking plant. Pokeweed is poisonous to humans. Birds, however, can eat pokeweed berries with no unwanted side effects.
Pokeweed is one of those botanical specimens that, when found, makes one stop with intrigue. The striking poisonous plant can clear seven feet in height and is adorned with large green simple leaves and elongated clusters of dark berries dripping from vibrant magenta branches.
The pokeweed that made its way into my sketchbook was found sprawling in a sunny clearing in a woodland. There were not too many ripe berries. In the plein air drawing, only eight berries are filled in with ink on a single raceme. Most berries were still developing in their green “pumpkin” state. (The unripe green berries remind me of miniature pumpkins.) When they do ripen, they round out into shiny deep purple berries verging on black and are similar in appearance to blueberries.
The morning of beating sunshine caused the pokeweed’s leaves to wilt. The wilt is depicted in the right half of the drawing. By the time I finished the plein air drawing, clouds arrived bearing shade. In this picture, I am holding up the drawing to what appears to be a pokeweed jungle.
On racemes where there would have been plenty of ripe berries, several pedicels were bare. The missing berries were most likely eaten by birds who, unlike humans, can happily eat the berries without any unwanted side effects. I could hear a gray catbird calling as I drew, and several robins flew by and hopped around the area. These and other bird species frequently dine on pokeweed berries.
As the morning in which I drew the pokeweed neared noon, I noticed the large leaves start to wilt under the stress of direct sunlight. Their droopy appearance is illustrated in the right half of the drawing. Clouds eventually arrived in the afternoon and offered the plant some relief. By the time this shade arrived, the drawing was finished. I closed my sketchbook and left the pokeweed to the birds.
Some notes, including stages of berry development, accompany the pokeweed plein air drawing.
The pokeweed drawing was done on Strathmore Drawing Paper with a 03 Misulove needle drawing pen.