This is widespread across temperate North America. It is a truly amazing plant, with great potential for post-urban restoration, aesthetics, food, medicine, dye and poison; JC has personally experienced all of these uses. Although there are occasional reports of consumption by deer, cattle or other livestock, the species may be generally avoided by mammalian herbivores (Balogh & Juhász 2008). P. americana has had much traditional use for food, as cooked greens in the spring, which appear highly palatable at first taste. However, excessive consumption of less deeply cooked greens, without change of water, can lead to diarrhoea, vomiting and delirium; the exact cause remains poorly understood (Knight-Trent & Cupp 2000). Humans have occasionally trained themselves to consume amounts of leaves or berries that would negatively affect most others (S. Price and J. Redden, pers. comm,). The berries produce a powerful dye (betanin or similar compounds), which led to some industrial use in Kentucky and other eastern states; the ruins of an old factory remain near Mount Sterling (MONT). The plants's chemistry includes diverse triperpene saponins (traditionally used to make soap), alkaloid-like compounds, lectins and other unusual proteins, as reviewed by Karami et al. (2010). The species also has a remarkable ability to accumulate N, P, K, Mn, Cd and other metals (e.g., Fu et al. 2011, DeGroote et al. 2018).