Episode Notes:
This month's episode features Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana). This is a fascinating plant with some surprising tie-ins with American history. Join Steve and Bill as they tell you about pokeweed's uncommon red pigment, its use in phytoremediation, and the various ways in which it demonstrates toxicity.

Mistakes:
We're crossing our fingers

Work Cited:
Eastman, John Andrew. The Book of Field and Roadside: Open-Country Weeds, Trees, and Wildflowers of Eastern North America. Stackpole Books, 2003.

Edwards, Maurice E., et al. "Seed germination of American pokeweed (Phytolacca americana). I. Laboratory techniques and autotoxicity." American Journal of Botany (1988): 1794-1802.

Gao, Lu, et al. "Cadmium and manganese accumulation in Phytolacca americana L. and the roles of non-protein thiols and organic acids."International journal of phytoremediation 15.4 (2013): 307-319.

Newcomb, Lawrence. "Newcomb’s wildflower guide." Little, Brown, and Company, Boston. xxii (1977).

Orrock, John L. "The effect of gut passage by two species of avian frugivore on seeds of pokeweed, Phytolacca americana." Canadian journal of botany83.4 (2005): 427-431.

Orrock, John L., et al. "Seed predation, not seed dispersal, explains the landscape‐level abundance of an early‐successional plant." Journal of Ecology 94.4 (2006): 838-845.

Peterson, Roger Tory, and Margaret McKenny. A field guide to wildflowers: northeastern and north-central North America. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1968.

Schliemann, Willibald, et al. "Betacyanins from plants and cell cultures of Phytolacca americana." Phytochemistry 42.4 (1996): 1039-1046.

Strack, Dieter, Thomas Vogt, and Willibald Schliemann. "Recent advances in betalain research." Phytochemistry 62.3 (2003): 247-269.

Taira, Junsei, et al. "Antioxidant capacity of betacyanins as radical scavengers for peroxyl radical and nitric oxide." Food chemistry 166 (2015): 531-536. 

Wei, Yuan, et al. "Molecular diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi associated with an Mn hyperaccumulator—Phytolacca americana, in Mn mining area." Applied Soil Ecology 82 (2014): 11-17.

Photo credit:
H. Zell (left & right)