Plants grown for their edible rhizomes include potatoes, ginger, and turmeric.
Rhizomes can also be cursed when weeds and invasive plants spread by rhizomes.
What Are Rhizomes?
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Unlike plant stems, rhizomes have more functions than mechanically supporting the plant and sending out new shoots.
Unlike roots, rhizomes have nodes.
The nodes of rhizomes send out roots into the soil to perform asexual reproduction by vegetative propagation.
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What Rhizomes Do
Rhizomes are a jot down of protective mechanism.
Because rhizomes are well-equipped by nature to protect themselves and reproduce, they spread fastoften too fast.
Ten of the worst weeds have rhizomes.
IrisThe Spruce / Jayme Burrows
Grasses that spread via rhizomes, such asBermudagrass, are often classified as invasive species.
Rhizomes grow underground or aboveground.
Ginger, canna, and snake plants have underground rhizomes while bearded irises and ferns have aboveground rhizomes.
MintThe Spruce / Jayme Burrows
Most rhizomes grow in a single layer, but a few are multi-layered or multi-tiered.
Often, these are highly invasive plants such as field horsetail.
Tip
Stolons, unlike rhizomes, grow only aboveground.
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The runners of strawberries are stolons.
In addition, there are two other identifiers.
Below are a few popular perennials with rhizomes.
Weeds and Invasive Plants With Rhizomes
The list ofinvasive plantsthat spread by rhizomes is long.
Eradication is only successful when all the rhizomes are thoroughly removed, which can be challenging to impossible.
Solarization is the only mechanical way to get rid of them.
The rhizomes of the bearded iris, for example, should not be covered completely with soil.
Another option to contain them is to deeply spade around the plants to sever and remove any straying rhizomes.
University of Arizona, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Oregon State University, Forage Information System.
