Sunday, 7:45 AM. 66 degrees, wind NW, calm. The channel is calm to dimpled, the sky is mixed clear and high thin white and gray clouds with some mare’s tails. The barometer again predicts rain. Yesterday was warm and muggy and today will be the same.The wild carrot, Daucus carota, is inbloom along the roadsides. It’s common names are Queen Anne’s lace, and in England, bird’s nests (which refers to the appearance of the inflorescence in seed). Both are very descriptive of the plant, which is easy to identify. The wild, virtually inedible carrot has been transformed through thousands of years of human selection into the garden carrot we know today. The wild and cultivated plants both have healthful herbal qualities as diuretics and carminatives. The herbal uses have been mostly abandoned and we think of the carrot today in primarily culinary terms. The wild carrot is easy to identify but be sure you know it well before you make any use of it, as it is in the parsley family, the Umbeliferae, which contains many poisonous plants.
Another sign of fall is the red-twigged dogwood now fruit. It’s white berries are very decorative but are not edible.
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