Just poking around

If you search online for uses of pokeweed, you might find yourself caught up in a web of conflicting characterizations: it's a worthless weed, a delicious green, a cure for arthritis, a "uterine stimulant" (whatever that means), a dangerous poison, and more. To my mind, any plant known primarily for causing vomiting and diarrhea is trying to tell us something, so I'm not interested in eating it. I just find it pretty.

Right now in the woods you can find pokeweed in many stages: green stems sprouting rows of delicate white flowers that produce fruits shaped like tiny green pumpkins, ripening into deep purple berries on bright pink stems. They grow at the edges of woods and meadows, mingling with wildflowers and merging into thick copses of poke.

This morning at the Luke Chute Conservation Area, I walked amid the pokeweed marveling over its many forms and colors but also watched a spider with bright orange legs building a web, scrambling around on invisible lines and laying down a continuous strand bit by bit to produce a structure so strong and lovely that it made me regret every spider web I've ever destroyed, but that didn't stop me from knocking down a few webs to avoid walking through them. I'll admire a spider web alongside the path, but I prefer not to encounter them face-first. 

Indigo bunting!