Description of Phytolacca americana (vernacular name: phytolacus, American grapes)

PHYTOLACCA AMERICANA L. [Foot of phytolaque] **Name**: Phytolacca Americana L. Phytolaccaceae better known as: Phytolaque or Grass of America, Dye Grape, Cayenne Teinturier, Judea Vineyard, Lacquer Herb, Cluster Morelle, “Pigeon berry”, “Pokeweed”.... **Origin**: Imported from the Americas to color poor quality wines and serve as a dye. **Description**: Perennial plant of the herbaceous family; disappears to the first frosts to better emerge from the ground once winter has passed; large fleshy root with strong underground development; in spring fleshy shoots and light green, grows of the very important plant during the spring, it can for larger subjects approach the four meters high. Hollow and woody partitioned rod of many opercules. At the end of spring depending on the years the flowers appear, followed by green berries then purple at maturity at the end of summer. The stem is sturdy, red as it ages. The leaves are simple, alternating, oval-shaped, spearheaded, quite large (10 to 25 cms long by 10 wide). The flowers are autogamous, pink white, five sepals and ten stamens, flowering from the base to the top. The fruits are green, then dark red to black at the end of ripening. **Habitat**: The Phytolaque settles everywhere where it finds soil and conditions that suit it; it will be well in the forests where it has probably been brought with the skid gears following the major storms; In the gardens where she finds an admiring public in front of her large purple fruit hamlets and huge red stems very decorative. It is a coloniser of the wasteland that once sown will experience an exponential growth and invade all the space. It is spread by birds that are less sensitive to the toxicity of its berries, but also by everything. turning soil, tiny seeds having an extremely large persistence — several decades. **Eventual Uses **: It is toxic from the root (+++) to the leaves (+) and can cause serious poisoning, going to death, but research suggests that it could have an anti-viral effect... it is used in homeopathy in a well-known ointment. Some populations in South America consume its young leaves, which has given rise to a “fashion” in our Western countries. It is used in traditional medicine in many countries despite its proven toxicity. **Others**: It must be expressly mentioned that it is very invasive: where it settles the Phytolacca will only be destroyed after manual grubbing up over several years. It induces a scarcity of native flora by its ability to obscure the media and changes the nature of the soil by the saponins it contains and the potash it releases by breaking down. Its important water needs dry out the environment. It would also have molluscicide effects and it eliminates the population of earthworms. But its greatest nuisance is of course its invasive character, admitted by the scientific community.