What is this weed?

[Tumbleweed]

O.K. I posted about this in Chit Chat but thought this would be a more proper place to post it. I said in my other post that I let two weeds grow intentionally. Milkweed is one that I always let grow for the monarch butterflies and the weed I am about to show pictures of below because I don't know what it is and it has some pretty facinating berries. (The "weed" is directly behind the chair and at one point was at least 10ft. tall until it started drooping because of the berries. In these photos the berries are just starting to turn color. These are all clickable for a larger view.


I put a chair by it so you could get the perspective of how tall it is.


I put my hand by this one so you could see how large the stem is.



This is what they start out as. Just tiny little white flowers.


Here the white flowers are changing to pink - you can see them higher up on the stem.

And here they are almost at their peak in color - sorry it was a little windy so a bit blurry plus my digital camera doesn't do close-ups very well. The berry section is almost 12 inches long.


Here is a nice close-up of the leaf shape.

I'll try again tomorrow to try to get some in focus shots.

[Tumbleweed]

Oh my gosh! The neighbor who lives directly across the alley-way from me, well their neighbor that lives directly across the street from them is a horticultural professor and a big shot with the county extension agency. So I gave him a call, got his answering machine then called me back and got my answering machine so we seem to be playing phone tag. LOL I hope we can finally talk as I'll be needing to cut that weed down before it goes to seed.

Wow, he may come in very handy to know for help in my Garden Center.

[barb]

I think its a pokeweed. Its considered a native wildflower and I love the way it looks but the berries and roots are poisonous if there is even a hint of pink to them.

www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=PHAM4

[Tumbleweed]

Oh my gosh. I want to know how you found that! LOL That is it! I better cut it down.

[barb]

It was really hard I'll tell you. I typed "purple berry" into google and clicked.

You owe me big time for that one. I was drained by the time I finished researching it.

[Tumbleweed]

No, seriously??? Oh sheesh. I swear I typed that in too and nothing. You have the magical touch. You are a good researcher, that I know.
Thanks so much.

[barb]

I just checked. I typed in "purple berries, red stems" ;Dand that narrowed it down considerably so it was easier to find.

[Tumbleweed]

I don't think I typed both of those things in - just one at a time. I also did "tall weeds", "biggest weeds", "list of weeds + my state, pretty berries (ROTFL), and I don't know what all. I'm actually laughing my fool head off that it took you all of a few minutes to locate it. Now I know who to come to when I can't find something.

[barb]

You come to me with easy research needs and then I won't feel so bad when I need you to handle technical stuff like http That sounds fair to me.

[Tumbleweed]

It's a deal.

[Becky]

I came by to see if I could figure out what the weed was, to late.

LOL I always have a hard time finding things in search engines. Things I look days for, my sisters find in a matter of seconds. I dont know what we are doing wrong tubleweed!