The leaves are still too immature for me to say for certain, but I'm pretty sure that those are Poke Salad roots (Phytolacca americana.)
Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)

I've dug up so many of them and older plants can produce huge roots! Hard work to remove!

Poke Salad would love that moist soil and the seeds were likely brought in via bird poo when the birds were feasting on the Mulberry tree's fruit. Birds also like the berries on Poke Salad. Poke Salad is poisonous if eaten to humans, though.

I was going to suggest letting one grow - those aren't carrot leaves. My thought was burdock but Phytolacca americana - Pokeweed or poke salad - is also a possibility.

Just because its called poke salad doesn't mean you should eat it. Unless you know what you are doing, you will poison yourself

Let one grow - you will have an answer in a week or two.

Daisy

Danita said:The leaves are still too immature for me to say for certain, but I'm pretty sure that those are Poke Salad roots (Phytolacca americana.)
Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)

I've dug up so many of them and older plants can produce huge roots! Hard work to remove!

Poke Salad would love that moist soil and the seeds were likely brought in via bird poo when the birds were feasting on the Mulberry tree's fruit. Birds also like the berries on Poke Salad. Poke Salad is poisonous if eaten to humans, though.

It does look like that. I'm thinking you're right about it. So, it's gonna be more than one weekend's worth of work for me.

Thank you. :)

DaisyI said:I was going to suggest letting one grow - those aren't carrot leaves. My thought was burdock but Phytolacca americana - Pokeweed or poke salad - is also a possibility.

Just because its called poke salad doesn't mean you should eat it. Unless you know what you are doing, you will poison yourself

Let one grow - you will have an answer in a week or two.

Daisy

I'll let one grow to see. I'll leave the one in the cut mulberry there...I couldn't dig it out anyways.

Thank you both very much. I'm just glad it didn't turn out to be hemlock or something. (could that be a possibility?) Before I got any responses this morning, I was looking up hemlock roots. It looks similar, but not too much. Colors are different.

Did you say there had been a Mulberry tree in the area in the past? Perhaps some of what you are seeing are Mulberry roots? There's a photo here for comparison: http://www.bing.com/images/sea...

plantladylin said:Did you say there had been a Mulberry tree in the area in the past? Perhaps some of what you are seeing are Mulberry roots? There's a photo here for comparison: http://www.bing.com/images/sea...

Yeah, it was. It had gotten about 5-6 feet tall I think and with a pretty spread of leaves and branches before it was cut down. The roots in that photo you linked, does look like "carrots" to me. You know what, there's another Mulberry tree growing up in the fig tree. Whenever I get around to removing it, I will check those roots as well. I noticed that mulberry in the fig tree weeks ago, it's pretty thin right now. I think I'll definitely get to it before the summer heat picks up.

Pokeweed is a difinite possibility. Also Rumex can have carrot-like roots. Wish we could see the foliage that goes with the roots.

Phytolacca americana (pokeweed) isn't poke "salad" but poke "sallet."

http://www.motherearthnews.com...

my mulberry trees have orange roots.if i dig one up or cut one down another one will sprout from the orange roots. Nell

@purpleinopp
Both Poke Salad and Poke Sallet, as well as many other monikers, are common names for Phytolacca americana.

That's why scientific names are so important!

I'm pretty sure that "salad" and "sallet" are, basically, two different spelling variations of the same word anyway (unless you are speaking of medieval armor, of course.)

I think it is the poke weed thing too. It gets really tall and has big stalks.

I think "Sallet" is just a southern regional dialect.

If the plant in question does turn out to be Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) it would be great to have a few database photos showing the roots!

I'd guess the "salad" spelling probably came about from passing along spoken info, without seeing the word in print, and some confusion on the part of a song writer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.southernfoodways.or...
http://www.urbandictionary.com...
This lady has written a lovely and amusing article:
http://southernspaces.org/2011...
http://www.texasescapes.com/DE...

Salad conjures automatic assumptions of a cold dish with some raw ingredients, which is unnecessarily dangerous:
Incidentally, you will hear poke weed called “poke sallet” which sounds like “salad.” That “sallet” and “salad” sound the same today has been the cause of a few poisonings because people did not cook the poke weed before eating it. Never eat poke weed raw. NEVER.
http://www.eattheweeds.com/can...

I wouldn't recognize a poke weed if I tripped over one -- but if they have roots like that, I'm really glad they don't grow up here!

@Weedwhacker Sandy, are you sure it doesn't grow in Michigan?

http://www.michiganflora.net/s...
http://www.pestid.msu.edu/weed...

Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana) refers to the plant itself.
Poke sallet refers to the cooked leaves and/or cooked young tips.

plantladylin said:@Weedwhacker Sandy, are you sure it doesn't grow in Michigan?

http://www.michiganflora.net/s...
http://www.pestid.msu.edu/weed...

Truthfully, I didn't know it grew anywhere in Michigan... but apparently it hasn't made it to the UP, at any rate

You have to go back pretty far to find a dictionary that even acknowledges the word "sallet" but see the definitions from 'The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia' (1889-91.) "Salad" should display on the first page shown (5309.) Scroll down for "sallet" on page 5313. You'll probably need to use the zoom feature (top, left) to read the text.

https://books.google.com/books...

It appears that the "sallet" spelling just fell out of use in favor of "salad" over time in most places but remained in more isolated communities like parts of the southeastern United States.

Sandy, be thankful! It is kind-of a pretty plant but such a reseeding thug and those established taproots are long, huge and sooo hard to dig.

I have a weeping mulberry and the roots look just like those. I also have poke berry. It is raining now but I will get some pics when it stops.