I loved playing with these kind of berries as a child. The red-purple color of the berry juice was a perfect ink for anything I wanted to color. The berries are poison when green, but when ripe they have a lot uses as natural medicines. My Mom used to cook the leaves as poke greens which she combined with other leafy vegetables. Poke-Salad is popular in some locations. There is a country song called "Poke-salad Annie."
