Queen Anne's Lace

Queen Anne's Lace is blooming now.  We have a lot of it here, and it's really kind of invasive and ever-present, but it sure is pretty while it's blooming.  It's an umbrell.  An umbrell of umbrells.  Look closely at the bloom and you'll see an umbrella arrangement of little umbrellas.  With one cute little dark maroon flower somewhere near the center.  And each of the little umbrells has larger petals around the outer edge.  Such intricacy of design!  Then when it forms seeds, the umbrells all curl toward the center and make a little nest filled with little sticky-burrs.  Cute, interesting, but not too nice if you happen to be wearing pantyhose and get too close.

Queen Anne's Lace is also known as wild carrot.  If you smell the root, you'll notice it smells kind of like carrots.  I wouldn't try eating one unless I was absolutely starving, though.  The umbrell family of plants contains some of the most poisonous of all--the hemlocks!  Of course it also contains some of our favorite herbs, like dill, chervil, and cilantro, as well as carrots and parsnips.  But there have been cases of people dying because they thought they were eating wild carrot when they really had something else.

I read about someone who dried lots of Queen Anne's Lace for wedding decorations.  That would probably be really pretty.  I have one in a vase in front of me that much be six inches in diameter.  It's huge!

I've been interested in a plant that I have all around the place, and I'm starting to think it's actually in the umbrell family.  A plant called sanicle.  There are several of them in the US, and they sometimes go by the name "black snakeroot."  I think I have several varieties of this plant on the property here.  The funny thing is, the name "sanicle" comes from a Latin word that means, "I heal."  Which means the sanicles have been used as healing herbs in centuries past.  I've googled sanicle, and found that it is a medicinal available from some herb suppliers.  Gotta keep learning!

Have a great day botanizing!