A plant root affected by canker disease, or a folk name for a plant species susceptible to root canker.
Compound of 'canker' and 'root', describing roots that are diseased. Part of the systematic English folk naming of plants affected by canker.
Root diseases are often invisible and harder to fight than leaf diseases, so 'cankerroot' would have been a warning name—if someone called a plant that, you'd know it had hidden problems underground.
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