Poke (Phytolacca americana) is a giant perennial grass, up to 3 m high, with many-headed rhizome, thick, juicy, mostly reddish stems and large brushes of whitish or greenish flowers. The leaves are whole, ovoid-elliptical. The flowers are bisexual, usually actinomorphic, and small. The fruit is a berry, with a shiny surface, dark red, almost black in ripening. It blooms in June-September. The fruits ripen in September-October.