ROOTS |
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Things we don’t normally consider fruits (nuts, seeds, and pods) are fruits after all, but underground plant parts we call roots really aren’t always true roots. Rhizomes, for example, are horizontal underground stems that give rise to true roots, and to aboveground shoots. They may form dense colonies, like cattails, so colonies indicate that the plants are connected by underground rhizomes. Some rhizomes, like Solomon’s seal's, store food underground. |
Rhizome |
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Some rhizomes, like the ground nut's, also produce tubers along their lengths. These short, thick sections of underground stems usually bear minute buds—the familiar eyes of potatoes—that can grow into new plants. Tubers also store food, and many are edible.
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Tuber |
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A bulb is a single, large, roundish bud, consisting of a short stem surrounded by layers of underground, scale-like leaves. Onions and garlic are typical. Bulbs often store food, and many are edible.
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Bulb |
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Corms are short, upright, thickened underground stems also specialized for food storage. They’re not layered like onions, nor attached to rhizomes or bearing buds like tubers. Sometimes they’re edible, but they don’t provide any major wild foods in the United States.
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Corm |
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Taproots are true roots. The form from the primary root—the first root that emerges from the seed. They’re usually large and vertical, with branches. Many, like burdock and common evening primrose, store food.
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Taproot |
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Fibrous roots look like they sound. These true roots are tangled masses of wiry fiber. Most are not edible or medicinal. They hold the soil together, keep out other plants, and often hamper you from digging up other roots.
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Fibrous Root |
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Edible roots are usually in season from fall to early spring, when they store food for spring growth. You can even collect them in the winter, if it’s warm enough that the ground doesn’t freeze, and the basal rosettes that mark the roots’ locations still grow. By mid-spring, most roots relinquish their stored food and become tough and woody, although exceptions such as burdock and ground nuts are edible all year.
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