This wildflower is the mother of all carrots.
Daucus carota
Wild Carrot
note: wild carrots are bi-annual and flower in the second year. The best carrots are harvested during the first years growth.
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Thanks to selective breeding, domesticated carrots are cultivars of a subspecies, Daucus carota sativus. Wild carrots might not look like the garden variety but they smell and taste like garden carrots. I’m chewing on one now and in my opinion they are far more tasty than garden carrots.
The wild carrot in the photo is pictured a little larger than life size. It’s about half as thick as my little finger and just over 5 inches long. I’d say the top inch or so is a bit too woody for fine dining but the rest is very good. Wild carrot is generally considered a noxious weed. I’m sure most people have seen more than their share of this plant growing along side the road and other waste places such as my lawn. There’s no shortage to harvest, using a shovel to loosen the soil I can pull up a meals worth in a few minutes. This is a weed that should be easy to control by eating. If enough people developed a taste for wild carrots this alien wouldn’t have a chance to be invasive.
Speaking of mothers, it’s believed wild carrot seed prevents motherhood. Over 2000 years ago Hippocrates first described using the crushed seeds of this plant as a form of birth control. Modern studies indicate it has some contraceptive effects but I wouldn’t recommend f’ing around with it. You could easily end up with an unexpected carrot top.
Queen Anne’s lace
…is so called because the flat umbrel of flowers resembles lace. Occasionally there is a red flower in the center. It is supposed to represent a blood droplet where Queen Anne pricked herself with a needle when she was making the lace.
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Although my field guides describe the flower cluster as having a single red floret in the center I’ve only seen it a few times. Usually the flowers are all white with no red at all. I rarely see a single red flower. I see multiple red florets far more often than singles and those times only happen occasionally. I estimate seeing red only about 1% of the time. Out of the hundreds of Queen Ann’s Lace flowers I looked at over the last two days I only came up with 3 flower clusters that had any red in them. I surmise the queen has learned to be more careful since the story was made up although she does stick herself pretty good now and then.
The flower umbrel starts and ends pretty much with the same cupped form. As the flowers bloom the umbrel becomes flat topped but as they fade away the cluster turns back up and forms a ‘bird nest’ as the plant goes to seed. Hense the other common name Bird’s Nest. (sorry but I don’t have a photo of the dried umbel)
note the stiff 3 point bracts below the flower cluster
Fresh cut flowers placed in colored water will draw the dye along with the water up the stems and tint the white flowers.
After a couple hours the dye has tinted the flowers. The green food dye was much more effective. The red had barely colored the flowers a ‘dirty’ white.
I found a couple of surprises while looking at the flowers. Here is a little white crab spider that was almost invisible among the tiny flowers.
Although I find far more crab spiders than red florets I have never heard anyone say the queen had crabs.
What would you say if you found this?
I’d say her panties were tied in a bunch after meeting this. Mine were for a second.
