squawroot

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An eastern North American plant (Conopholis americana) parasitic on the roots of oaks and other trees and having tubular yellowish flowers and a stem covered with brownish scales.
2. n. An eastern North American plant (Trillium erectum) having ill-smelling, purple to yellow flowers with three petals and dark red, six-angled fruit.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A leafless fleshy plant, Conopholis Americana, of the Orobanchaceæ, found in the eastern United States. It grows from 3 to 6 inches high, with the thickness of a man's thumb, and is covered with fleshy scales having the flowers in their axils, at length becoming hard. It is more or less root-parasitic, and occurs in clusters among fallen leaves in oak-woods. Also cancer-root.
2. n. Rarely, the blue cohosh, Caulophyllum thalictroides.

Wiktionary

1. n. Either of two, unrelated plants from eastern North America:

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) A scaly parasitic plant (Conopholis Americana) found in oak woods in the United States; -- called also cancer root.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. tall herb of eastern North America and Asia having blue berrylike fruit and a thick knotty rootstock formerly used medicinally
2. n. tall herb of eastern North America and Asia having blue berrylike fruit and a thick knotty rootstock formerly used medicinally