Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, thickets, field borders, and waste
soil, especially in burnt-over districts.
Flowering Season - June-October.
Distribution - Maine and Ontario to Florida and Texas.
When the pokeweed is "all on fire with ripeness," as Thoreau
said; when the stout, vigorous stem (which he coveted for a
cane), the large leaves, and even the footstalks, take on
splendid tints of crimson lake, and the dark berries hang heavy
with juice in the thickets, then the birds, with increased,
hungry families, gather in flocks as a preliminary step to
traveling southward. Has the brilliant, strong-scented plant no
ulterior motive in thus attracting their attention at this
particular time? Surely! Robins, flickers, and downy woodpeckers,
chewinks and rose-breasted grosbeaks, among other feathered
agents, may be detected in the act of gormandizing on the fruit,
whose undigested seeds they will disperse far and wide. Their
droppings form the best of fertilizers for young seedlings;
therefore the plants which depend on birds to distribute seeds,
as most berry bearers do, send their children abroad to found new
colonies, well equipped for a vigorous start in life.
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