Queens Anne's Lace

(Daucus carota)

 

Color Photograph: Copyright Nearctica.com, Inc.

Line Drawing: Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada, Second Edition.

 

Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota)

Alien: Introduced from Europe.

Identification: Flowers white, in a very flat-topped umbel. Center of umbel commonly (but not always) with a black to dark purple central floret appearing like a black dot. Old flower clusters usually curling upward to form a cuplike structure. Base of umbel with elongate, stiff, three-branched bracts. Leaves heavily divided and subdivided. Plant 2 to 3 feet in height.

Distribution: Throughout almost all of North America.

Habitat: This weedy species is found in a wide variety of disturbed areas including fields, roadsides, margins of paths, and other waste areas.

Flowering period: May to October.

Note: Queen Anne's Lace is the progenitor of the cultivated carrot. The root is small, tough, and stringy and not particularly good to eat. The possiblility of confusing this species with one of the poisonous species of the family, as well as its general inedibility, make it a bad choice as an edible wild plant.

Queen Anne's Lace (Dacus carota)

Similar Species:

The 3-pronged elongate bracts below the extremely flat flower umbel and the common presence of a dark central floret will separate Queen Anne's Lace from other species of white-flowered umbellifers.

Similar Species

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