QUEEN ANNE'S LACE

QUEEN ANNE'S LACE ...

...UNFOLDING FLOWERS...

COMPOUND UMBEL OF FLOWERS

COMPOUND PINNATE LEAF, FINELY DISSECTED LEAFLETS

Friday, 8:00 AM.  65 degrees F at the ferry dock, 58 on the back porch.  Wind ENE, light with slightly stronger gusts.  The sky is blue and cloudless, the humidity 79%.  The barometer stands at 30.11" and has begun a gradual decline.  The weather should be superb through Sunday, then become unsettled the following week.  This morning approaches a "perfect ten."

   Queen Anne's lace, the perennial plant also known as wild carrot, Daucus carrota, in the Parsley Family (Umbelliferae) is a common roadside and field plant found virtually throughout North America. Native to Europe, it is considered by the USDA to be a noxious weed.  It is a rather attractive plant in flower, and a selection, subspecies sativa, that was made from it thousands of years ago by some unnamed gardener  became the edible carrot.  

   The wild carrot root is edible when young but rapidly becomes too woody to eat.  Do not eat any part of the wild carrot unless you are absolutely sure of its identification, since many members of the Parsley Family are poisonous, and some extremely deadly.

   In England the plant is also called bird's nest, since the unfolding umbels resemble a bird's nest, before the flowers bloom. 
   Wild carrot is important in herbal medicine as a diuretic and  for the treatment of gout.