Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot)

Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus Carota); taken along the Merrimack Canal in Lowell

Queen Anne's Lace, sometimes called wild carrot, can grow up to 4 feet tall, with slender stems that branch out into rosettes of small, white petals. The first year this plant grows it only shows green leaves and shoots. After its first winter the plant begins to bud and eventually flower. Forming in small clusters, these flowers can self-pollinate or get help from insects like flies and bees.

The Queen Anne's Lace is very tolerate of full sun and dry soil. It can grow in large, open areas where many other plants cannot grow, or else they would wither away. In Lowell and other urban areas it can often be found in vacant lots, roadsides, roadsides and meadows.

The species is considered nonnative, as it originated in Europe and North Africa, and some states have declared it invasive. It does serve some ecological purpose now that it's here however. It is a food source for animals (and used in some herbal recipes for humans!). It grows in barren and salty soils distrubed human expansion and urbanization, providing beautiful flowers and creating small quantities of oxygen from carbon.

 

FUN FACT

One out of every four Queen Anne's Lace plants has a chance of developing a single, purple flower in the center of the plant. This is called the "fairy-seat."