Consider digging up pokeweed plants or cutting them down, though that might be difficult when the plant is large. The best way to keep very young children safe is to watch them closely outdoors. How can you prevent children from eating pokeberries? It's difficult to keep it out of your yard because of the deep root. Serious gastrointestinal problems have occurred, including bloody vomiting, bloody diarrhea, and low blood pressure. Adults have eaten the roots, mistaking them for medicinal plants. Eating several berries, though, can cause a lot of stomach distress: pain, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. The plants grow from deep tap roots which are hard to dig up.Ĭhildren who eat a berry or two are not likely to develop symptoms. By August, many or most of these berries have become shiny and purple. During the summer, clusters of white flowers turn into green berries. In the spring, young poke leaves are cooked as "poke salad" leaves must be boiled and drained twice to be eaten safely. Individual plants may be a few feet tall or adult height. Pokeweed is an herbaceous perennial with multiple red stems. 
Adults can easily tell pokeberries from grapes by their red stems, which don't look like woody grapevines at all. To a child, pokeberries look like grapes: clusters of purple berries hang from stems, usually at a child's level. The tell-tale clue is purple stains in and around the mouth, on their hands, and on their clothing. Usually, they picked pokeberries growing in their yards. Poison Control gets a lot of calls about children who ate purple berries.
Of course, they are good to eat! The berries on the right are pokeberries. But are they both good to eat? Can you tell them apart? Can your child tell them apart?
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