Parsnip Root

Parsnip

The parsnip is a root vegetable closely related to carrot and parsley, all belonging to the flowering plant family Apiaceae. It is a biennial plant usually grown as an annual. Its long taproot has light cream colored skin and flesh, and, left in the ground to mature, becomes sweeter in flavor after winter frosts. In its first growing season, the plant has a rosette of pinnate, mid-green leaves. If unharvested, it produces a flowering stem topped by an umbel of small yellow flowers in its second growing season, later producing pale brown, flat, winged seeds. By this time, the stem has become woody, and the taproot inedible.

Root

In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the surface of the soil, but roots can also be aerial or aerating, that is, growing up above the ground or especially above water.

parsnip

Noun

1. A biennial plant, Pastinaca sativa, related to the carrot.
2. The root of the parsnip, when used as a vegetable.

root

Noun

1. The part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors and supports the plant body, absorbs and stores water and nutrients, and in some plants is able to perform vegetative reproduction.
2. A root vegetable.

Verb

1. To grow roots; to enter the earth, as roots; to take root and begin to grow.
2. To prepare, oversee, or otherwise cause the rooting of cuttings.