sweetroot
English
Etymology
sweet + root
Noun
sweetroot (countable and uncountable, plural sweetroots)
- liquorice
- western sweet cicely, western sweetroot (Osmorhiza occidentalis)
- 1997, Gregory L. Tilford, Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West, Sweetroot, Osmorrhiza occidentalis, page 142:
- Like other members of this large family, sweetroot presents its tiny flowers in terminal, umbrella-shaped inflorescences that do little to assure us that the plant is not the deadly water hemlock (Cicula douglasii)
- 2009, Ray S. Vizgirdas, Edna M. Rey-Vizgirdas, Wild Plants of the Sierra Nevada, page 64:
- The plant is sometimes confused with Osmorhiza chilensis (western sweetroot), which often shares the same habitat. However, unlike red baneberry, sweetroot has a strong licorice-like odor.
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Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for sweetroot in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)