November seeds and learn to ID your Phytolacca

Latest native species added to the Seeds List: from the well-known by now Asclepias exaltata to new donations from friends, always thankful for them:
Rudbeckia maxima, Giant coneflower
Phytolacca americana ‘Variegata’, Variegated pokeweed
and Musineon divaricatum, Leafy wild parsley

I had somewhere an older picture with Rudbeckia maxima but cannot find it. If we look on google images here: Rudbeckia maxima, we see an extremely tall Black-eyes Susan, with a particular large, glaucous foliage; a truly striking species.
Musineon divaricatum, leafy wild parsley was a completely new species to me. What better occasion to learn about new plants than through their seeds?! We are always in need of hardy, drought resistant species for our gardens.

Everyone knows Phytolacca americana, the American pokeweed. It also has a variegated form, with creamy splashed foliage which adds more interest and provides a nice background for the black fruits in the fall. Back again to google images, which most times are useful: Phytolacca americana ‘Variegata’.

However, it was disturbing to see that if someone looks on google after typing Phytolacca americana, there are a LOT of wrongly identified fruits images, coming from all sides of the life: seeds sellers, images sellers, food bloggers… you name it.

We can look at our American pokeweed as an ornamental plant, and also, as its common name implies, a weed (outside of North America). On the fact that is a native species, we accept that will reseed around and maybe spread in undesirable places, as it happens with Solidago canadensis.

However, we always have to be aware of ‘impersonators’ of the same genus which have different origins. In our regions they can easily become invasive weeds. This is not the case yet for the Chinese and Indian Phytolacca species, but we have to be cautious with all species producing abundant fruits & reseeding around easily.

Phytolacca acinosa, a Chinese species, is morphologically very similar to the native Phytolacca americana. The most visible differences are the erect inflorescences and the fruits.
In Phytolacca acinosa the carpels are free, and thus the fruit looks deeply furrowed when ripe; the seeds are reniform, ca. 3 mm, 3-angulate and smooth.

In Phytolacca americana, the carpels are fused, and therefore the fruits are round berries (at maturity) with the seeds lenticular, about the same size, black and shiny. Go Botany (https://gobotany.nativeplanttrust.org/) is a website that you can always trust to provide true images for NA native species.

The differences in fruits between P. americana and P. acinosa (and probably others) are very easy to observe in my opinion. Negligence, copy-paste from one site to another without discernment may be the cause of so many mistakes.

I don’t have the intention to openly bash other websites, but mistakes have to be shown in order to learn from them. Open and browse the gallery where I give just a few examples and notice the label ‘wrong’, meaning ‘not Phytolacca americana’ (probably P. acinosa or P. polyandra?).

The conclusion is: google images for plants is usually useful, gathering info from many educational or other purposes websites, but never take for ‘true’ everything you see. Try to do more research and, in general, be cautious about websites that try to sell you something.