wild parsnip

British  

noun

1. a strong-smelling umbelliferous plant, Pastinaca sativa, that has an inedible root: the ancestor of the cultivated parsnip

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

wild parsnip

“The egg white is cattails. The yolk is pickled heirloom tomatoes in a broth of wild parsnip juice. I use willow bark to make the home fries, and squash as bacon.”

From The New Yorker ● Aug. 22, 2016

On Kodiak Island the sites were covered with stinging nettles and wild parsnip; over burial sites elderberries were common.

From Time Magazine Archive

In the old days, people had carried around these little chunks of wild parsnip root to protect themselves from poisonous snakes, and so what if rattlesnakes had always been as rare as money in Milagro?

From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols

After divesting himself of his clothing, some large bowlders, previously heated in a fire, were placed near him, and over them was poured a decoction of the beaten roots of the wild parsnip.

From The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1885-1886, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1891, pages 301-398 by Mooney, James

By the side of cornfields the wild parsnip sometimes grows in great profusion.

From Wild Life in a Southern County by Jefferies, Richard