Introduction to the Phytolaccaceae, or Pokeweed Family

Welcome to the Pokeweed, or Phytolaccaceae, family. While small, this is an interesting family with beautiful magenta stems and flower stalks and often glossy dark purple to almost black berries. While they may look delicious, don’t eat them! They contain high amounts of toxic saponins that can cause severe irritation of your gastrointestinal tract. Despite their toxicity, however, they are a fascinating family to look at! My only experience with this family so far is with Phytolacca americana, so my photos are only of that species. But it’s such a fascinating plant; I just had to make a family page about them while I wait to venture further south and find more members of this mostly tropical and subtropical family.

If you’re new to plant morphology, the guide immediately below is a perfect beginner’s description if you are keen to learn how to identify the Phytolaccaceae, or Pokeweed, family, with no need to know any scientific jargon.

Below the guide, you’ll find morphology photos to help you identify the features of the Phytolaccaceae family, information on uses and wildlife values, and pictures of individual Phytolaccaceae species I have photographed in North America.

For researchers or those wanting to learn even more, further down the page is a Scientific Botanical Description with botanical terms and my genus-level distribution data throughout North, Central, and South America.

Beginner’s Guide to the Pokeweed (Phytolaccaceae) Family

Leaves and Stems of the Pokeweed Family

The Pokeweed family are mostly robust perennial herbs, shrubs, or sometimes soft-wooded trees or woody vines found in mesic or sometimes arid habitats.

The leaves are strictly alternately arranged in a spiral pattern, usually have leaf stalks, and never have appendages (stipules) at their leaf base. The leaf blade is simple (not compound) with entire margins and pinnate venation.

Flowers of the Pokeweed Family

Pokeweed flowers are mostly bisexual, containing male (stamens) and female (stigma, style, and ovary) organs in the same flower, but rarely they can have separate male and female flowers on separate plants (dioecious). Flowers are typically arranged in various inflorescences (never solitary) at branch tips or in leaf axils.

Flowers are mostly radially symmetrical but can be irregular. The floral receptacle contains a nectary-producing disk at the base of the ovary (hypogynous disk).

The flower is made only of sepal-like tepals or sometimes colored tepals, which often persist and enlarge in fruit.

Reproductive Features of the Pokeweed Family

There are 5-30 stamens in 2 to many whorls, inserted at the base of the ovary or at the margins of the nectary disk. They are always fertile except in rare dioecious members.

There are 5-16 ovaries in each flower, which may be fused (syncarpous), partly fused (semicarpous), or free (apocarpous), each with its own terminal style and stigma. Each ovary produces a single seed.

Fruits of the Pokeweed Family

The pokeweed family produces mostly fleshy, juicy berries or sometimes aggregate fruits made of individual berrylets or drupelets; each has 4-16 seeds per fruit.

Morphology of Phytolaccaceae in North America

Some Species of Phytolaccaceae Found in North America

Phytolacca americana—American Pokeweed

American Pokeweed is a massive perennial herb to subshrub reaching up to 3 m tall with thick, hollow, hairless stems that turn magenta to wine-red when they mature. Leaves are lance-shaped to oval, up to 30 cm long, and give off an unpleasant medicinal smell when crushed. It produces elongated clusters of small petalless flowers that turn from greenish-white to pale pink, beginning upright but drooping as the segmented green berries ripen and swell, becoming smoother, glossy, and dark purple-black berries. It is native to eastern and central North America from southeastern Canada south into central Mexico.

Uses of the Phytolaccaceae Family

Phytolacca dioica is occasionally cultivated in warmer regions of the world, mostly as a fast-growing shade tree having a large, swollen base and soft, spongy wood. 

The high saponin content of Phytolacca dodecandra has made them popular across Africa for use as a traditional laundry detergent and soap.   

Various Phytolacca species have been used in traditional herbal medicine as emetics, purgatives, and anti-inflammatory poultices (despite marked toxicity from triterpene saponins and phytolaccatoxin).

Young shoots of Phytolacca americana are consumed as a boiled green (“poke sallet”) after multiple boilings to leach toxins, and its dark berries are still occasionally used to make red to purple betalain dyes and ink.

Ecosystem and Wildlife Values of the Phytolaccaceae

The berries of some Phytolacca species provide essential late-summer and autumn food sources for numerous songbirds who are immune to the triterpenoid saponins and digest the seeds intact for avian seed dispersal mechanisms. Opportunistic omnivores like bears and raccoons also browse the berries, though they remain highly toxic to livestock and pets.

The dense, nectariferous flowers provide a generalist nectar and pollen source for native bees, syrphid flies, wasps, and small butterflies, while the foliage serves as a larval food source for Lepidopterans, including the giant leopard moth.

Taxonomy of the Phytolaccaceae Family

The Phytolaccaceae family has 33-35 species in 4 genera and is part of the Caryophyllales order of core Eudicots. In earlier treatments (such as Cronquist or early APG classifications), Phytolaccaceae was a large, polyphyletic assemblage divided into multiple subfamilies. However, phylogenetic investigations across the Caryophyllales order (notably Hernández-Ledesma et al. 2015 from the Caryophyllales Network) established that retaining these lineages rendered Phytolaccaceae polyphyletic. Consequently, the family was split into several small but distinct, monophyletic segregate families: the Petiveriaceae, Agdestidaceae, Microteaceae, Gisekiaceae, Barbeuiaceae, Stegnospermataceae, and Lophiocarpaceae.

Another important taxonomic note is that Anisomeria has typically been included in Phytolacca now based on modern phylogenetics, whereas it previously had been segregated because of its irregular flowers and unequal stamens. Since here I rely primarily on Plants of the World Online (POWO) for my distribution data, I am retaining it as a separate genus until my sources are in agreement. However, Nowickea is included in Phytolacca on POWO for similar reasons, yet is segregated elsewhere. Since I had distribution data already, and all my sources are also not in agreement, I am also retaining it as a separate genus here as well.

Genera of the Phytolaccaceae Family

Anisomeria (4), Ercilla (2), Nowickea (2), Phytolacca (25-27).

Key Differences From Similar Families

The Phytolaccaceae are primarily confused with now-segregated families that were included in the polyphyletic version of the family.

They can be distinguished from the Stegnospermataceae by having indehiscent fruits (vs. capsules in the Stegnospermataceae), the absence of petals (vs. petals present), and the lack of an aril on the seeds (vs. conspicuously arillate seeds). 

The Phytolaccaceae can be separated from Achatocarpaceae by having either bisexual flowers or unisexual flowers with rudiments of the opposite sex (vs. unisexual flowers lacking rudiments of the opposite sex) and uniovulate ovaries with the same number of ovules as carpels (vs. a uniovulate ovary formed by 2 carpels).  

The Phytolaccaceae can be distinguished from the Petiveriaceae by the presence of a strictly monomerous gynoecium (compared to multicarpellate in the Phytolaccaceae) and the occasional presence of minute stipules and gland dots that are absent in the Phytolaccaceae.

Scientific Botanical Description of the Phytolaccaceae Family

Habit & Leaf Form of the Phytolaccaceae Family

The Phytolaccaceae under the modern s.s. delineation are primarily perennial herbs (often robust or arborescent), shrubs, soft-wooded trees, or woody lianas climbing via adventitious aerial rootlets (Ercilla). Stems and foliage are non-succulent to somewhat fleshy; mostly mesophytic and occasionally xerophytic.

Leaves are strictly alternate and spirally arranged and are petiolate to subsessile, non-sheathing, and strictly exstipulate with no domatia present.

The leaf lamina is simple, herbaceous, chartaceous, or subcoriaceous with entire margins and pinnate venation that is cross-venulate (brochidodromous to eucamptodromous) and is not gland-dotted.

Mucilaginous cells, or mucilage canals, may be present in parenchymatous tissue. Stomata are anomocytic and are mostly confined to the abaxial surface. Hairs are typically absent but may be sparsely pubescent with eglandular, uniseriate, simple, multicellular, or unicellular hairs; complex hairs are absent.

Flowers of the Phytolaccaceae Family

Phytolacceae plants are usually hermaphroditic, sometimes dioecious (e.g., Phytolacca dioica), and rarely polygamodioecious. Inflorescences are indeterminate, with flowers borne in racemes, spikes, or occasionally panicles; they are terminal, axillary, or leaf-opposed; solitary flowers are typically absent.

Flowers are bracteate and bracteolate, with 1 primary floral bract subtending the pedicel and 1-2 small subopposite or alternate bracteoles along the pedicel or beneath the perianth. Bracts are herbaceous to scarious and are usually persistent.

Flowers are cyclic and usually actinomorphic, but become zygomorphic in Anisomeria.

The floral receptacle is flat to hemispherical, often expanded beneath the ovary into a fleshy hypogynous netarifrerous disk. There is no free hypanthium, and unlike some now segregated members of Stegnospermataceae and Petiveriaceae, they do not produce a gynophore.

The perianth is made of uniseriate tepals (1 whorl), typically consisting of 5 parts, but occasionally 4-8 parts. All are distinct and free to the base, or, rarely, connate only at the extreme base. They are imbricate in bud, equal to unequal, and herbaceous (greenish) to petaloid in white, pink, red, or purplish. Tepals are often persistent in fruit, somewhat accrescent, or turning dark red/fleshy in fruit.

Androecium of the Phytolaccaceae Family

There are 5-30 stamens (4-33) that are isomerous and diplostemonous (2 alternate whorls of 5) or polymerous/multistiminate in 2 to several irregular whorls. They are inserted at the base of the ovary, around or on the margins of the hypogynous disk, and are free from the perianth or, rarely, adnate to the tepals’ extreme base.

All members are strictly fertile except when vestigial in dioecious taxa. They are usually free from one another, but filaments are rarely slightly connate at the extreme base to form a low fleshy ring; they are usually equal in length except in Anisomeria.

Anthers are tetrasporangiate, dithecal, dorsifixed (often versatile) to basifixed, introrse, and dehiscing via continuous longitudinal slits.

Gynoecium of the Phytolaccaceae Family

The gynoecium of the Phytolaccaeae is composed of 5–16 (rarely 4) carpels arranged in a single radial whorl around a central receptacle. The gynoecium is always superior and varies in the degree of fusion from apocarpous to semicarpous to syncarpous. When syncarpous, the ovary is 4-16 locular, matching the carpel number; placentation is strictly basal.

Styles 5-16 (rarely 4), matching the number of carpels, are typically free, erect to strongly recurved, terminal, and linear, subulate, or conic. Stigmas match the style numbers, are decurrent along the adaxial/inner margin or apical, and are papillate.

There is strictly one ovule per carpel or locule, ascending or erect from the base; campylotropous; bitegmic; crassinucellate; and lacking an aril.

Fruit of the Phytolaccaceae Family

The fruits of the Phytolaccaceae are mostly fleshy to somewhat fleshy, strictly indehiscent, and subtended by the persistent and often accrescent perianth. Members produce berries in syncarpous taxa, forming ~globose, carnose, juicy, 5-16-locular berries that are vertically fluted or ribbed with locules matching the carpel numbers. Or, in apocarpous to csemicarpous taxa, they form a radial world of 4-16 distinct or partially coherent, fleshy to coriaceous or drupaceous mericarps of berrylets or drupelets arranged around a central axis.

There are 4-16 seeds per fruit that are laterally compressed with a crustaceous, smooth, glossy black or dark reddish-brown testa (rarely rugulose or stiate), with no arils present. Endosperm is absent or significantly reduced, while abundant perisperm is present, which is starchy and mealy or farinaceous.

Global Distribution of the Phytolaccaceae Family

The Phytolaccaceae are found mostly in tropical and subtropical latitudes, particularly in the American continents, where they also reach more temperate latitudes. However, it is also found in Africa, Eurasia, Southeast Asia, and Australia, predominantly in the tropical and subtropical latitudes.  

Distribution of the Phytolaccaceae in the American Continents

Canadian Phytolaccaceae Genera

Phytolacca 1 species of a mostly pantropical genus native to ON, QC, and NB.

USA Phytolaccaceae Genera

Phytolacca 6 species of a mostly pantropical genus, is mostly native and sometimes introduced to most of the USA, including HI, but excluding ID, MT, ND, SD, WY, CO, NV, and UT. 

Mexico Phytolaccaceae Genera

Nowickea 2 spp. Mexico endemic genus native to NE+C+SW Mexico, sometimes included in Phytolacca; Phytolacca 4+ species of a mostly pantropical genus native to all of Mexico.

Neotropical Phytolaccaceae Genera

Anisomeria 3 spp. Chile endemic genus native to N+C Chile, including 2 endemic to C Chile, 1 in N+C Chile, and the rest of the genus endemic to Patagonian Chile; Ercilla 1-2 spp. Chile endemic genus of C+S Chile, mostly Patagonian Chile, but may be at the southern limit of the neotropical zone; Phytolacca 16 species mostly pantropical genus native to CAM, the Greater Antilles, the Leeward+Windward Islands, Trinidad-Tobago, and tropical SAM S to N Argentina, except N Chile, but including C Chile.

Patagonian South America Phytolaccaceae Genera

Anisomeria 3 spp. Chile endemic genus native to C+S Chile, including one endemic of S Chile; Ercilla 2 spp. Chile endemic genus of C+S Chile; Phytolacca 2 species of a mostly pantropical genus native to C+S Chile.

Additional Information and References

• Visit Lyrae’s Dictionary of Botanical Terms to learn the terminology of botanists. Note that if you hover over most of the words in the articles, you can also get definitions from them there.
• Willis, Lyrae (Unpublished). Plant Families of North America. This is where all of the family descriptions come from. Below should be most of my references for this, along with my own personal observations throughout North America.
• Canadensys: Acadia University, Université de Montréal Biodiversity Centre, University of Toronto Mississauga, University of British Columbia. http://data.canadensys.net/explorer (accessed 2020 – current)
• Caryophyllales Network. (2015+). Caryophyllales.org: A dynamic synthesis of the order Caryophyllales. Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin (BGBM). Available at: https://caryophyllales.org/cdm_dataportal/taxon/7040cc71-4f0d-4fd9-9384-eb4d003274aa
• FNA 1993+. Flora of North America. https://floranorthamerica.org/Main_Page. Accessed 2022-current.
• iNaturalist.org 2020+. https://www.inaturalist.org/. Accessed 2020-current. If you like plants or nature in general, please join the iNaturalist community and start sharing your observations with others. The data we track is invaluable for scientists like me wanting to track population changes over time.
• Neotropikey: Milliken, W., Klitgård, B., & Baracat, A. eds. 2009+. Neotropikey: Interactive key and information resources for flowering plants of the Neotropics. www.kew.org/neotropikey.com (accessed 2020 – current).
• Patagonia Wildflowers: Wildflower Identification Site. https://patagoniawildflowers.org/ Accessed throughout the fall of 2020.
• POWO 2019+. Plants of the World Online. Facilitated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Published on the Internet: http://www.plantsoftheworldonline.org/. Accessed 2020-current.
• Stevens, P. F. 2001+. Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 14, July 2017 [more or less continuously updated since]. http://www.mobot.org/MOBOT/research/APweb/
• USDA, NRCS. 2020+. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 2 June 2020). National Plant Data Team, Greensboro, NC, USA; accessed 2020-present.
• WFO (2022+): World Flora Online. Published on the Internet: http://www.worldfloraonline.org. Accessed Spring 2022 – current

Copyright Information

The information and the photos on this site are free to use for educational purposes, with proper attribution. For other uses, please contact me first.

You can cite this site as Willis, Lyrae (2020+). Lyrae’s Nature Blog – Plant Families of North America. https://lyraenatureblog.com/