Photo taken from website called Straight from the Farm
TheGardenLady received this question from Charna.
I think I have this little bugger in my flowerbeds and garden. I really really need to know what the roots look like. I keep pulling up these large carrot type roots that are very often doubled and remind me of what ginsing must look like, and can be rather large clumps. Do you have a picture ofthe root for a mustard garlic weed?
It is so much easier to identify a plant when it is growing above ground when you see the leaves than trying to identify a plant from its roots. And it helps the most for identifying purposes to look at the flower of the plant, if it has flowers.
Garlic mustard is an easy plant to identify when one sees the leaves the first year before it has flowers and also when it has flowers from both the sight and the smell. (see here)
You can also take in samples of the weed to your Master Gardeners office or your agricultural extension office and they will identify it for free. They prefer having the leaves and flowers on weeds. The larger the sample, the easier to identify a plant.
But if you want to try to use the computer to identify garlic mustard root, google up “garlic mustard root” and click on images.
And if you want to look at other weed roots, google up “images of weed roots.” Then click on the photo of your choice and one will pop up. Then click on “visit page.”