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The Monday Garden
Weeds of Summer: Queen Anne's Lace
Issue No. 169 - June 19, 2005
by Sue Sweeney
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I am particularly drawn to the tough, urban-pioneer
wildflowers that grow in the cracks in the sidewalk,
along the roads, and behind the parking lots,
reclaiming the land from so-called civilization.
They are the true “streetscapers” of our modern
sub/urban world. Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus
carotais) is a champion “street” flower, capable
of enduring long periods of drought in the baking
sun. |
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| Picture: Queen Anne’s lace with a small,
cute bee who probably preys on other insects when not being
a useful pollinator. Bedford Street Stamford CT Summer 2004. |
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Queen Anne’s lace, though, is much more than a
pretty face. With humans, it has a long, long
history as a decorative, medicinal, and food plant.
While the livestock don’t care much for Queen Anne’s
lace (for example, Queen Anne’s lace is supposedly
poisonous to rabbits), the birds eat the seeds, and
small songbirds use the waving flower umbels as a
song perch. Queen Anne’s lace also attracts and
nurtures many, many beneficial insects (so named by
farming and gardening humans because the insects are
predators that keep other insects in check and/or
help out in other ways e.g. by making silk).
Food Uses: Queen Anne’s lace isn’t
just a member of the carrot family (a/k/a
parsley family); it is the parent of our
garden carrot. Also called the “wild
carrot”, Queen Anne’s lace has a long, pale,
woody, finger-thin taproot to absorb and
store water. While the young taproot has
been used as food (in soup and stew) in
Eurasia since time-out-of-mind, and in North
America since Queen Anne’s lace came over
with the Euro-settlers in the 1700’s, many
call the Queen Anne’s lace root
“unpalatable”.
So how do you get a nice, sweet, juicy,
orange carrot from this stringy,
reportedly-smelly, nasty-tasting yellowish
root? The old fashion way; no gene splicing
required. Grow thousands of the plant, save
the seeds from the ones with the fleshiest
roots, repeat. It is rumoured that the
Afghanistans or the Pakistans might have
done the original hybridizing, some time
before 900 A.D. |
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pictures: Picture: These
Queen Anne’s lace pictures were taken in downtown Stamford,
CT, Summers 2002 and 2004 but they could have just as easily
come from the alleyways of Afghanistan or Iraq. |
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Medicinal Uses: A bit earlier, in 400
or 500 B.C., Hippocrates himself wrote about
the medical properties of Queen Anne’s lace.
Historically, Queen Anne’s lace has been
used to treat a wide variety of internal and
external aliments, and apparently does have
anti-bacterial and other medical properties.
Now here’s a surprise: some modern studies
seem to confirm something that Hippocrates
is supposed to have mentioned: properly
harvested and used, Queen Anne’s lace seeds
provide a “Morning After” estrogen hit that
prevents a fertilized egg from being
implanted in the uterus.
I have always considered a mature carrot,
eaten raw daily, to be the best possible aid
for the complexion. I had thought, though,
that it was the retina A, but now, I don’t
know, perhaps it is the estrogen! (Keep in
mind that these are potent herbs – don’t
start the self-medication without thorough
research, etc., etc. Too much estrogen has
some nasty side effects like breast cancer,
they think. If another word to the
not-so-wise was needed: the plant’s scientific
name supposedly comes from the Greek “dais”,
meaning to burn.)
The Carrot-Parsley-Hemlock Family:
As mentioned, Queen Anne’s lace family
members include our breathe-freshening
friend, parsley. Some other useful herbs
from the overseas branch of the family are
dill, chervil, celery, parsnips, caraway,
and coriander. The native relatives
including a form of angelica, water-hemlock
(poisonous), water-pennywort, sanicle (black
snakeroot), cow parsnip, bishop's-weed,
golden Alexanders (looks like
yellow-flowered dill), sea lovage, yellow
pimpernel, and anise root (not related to
anise). While many carrot family members are
good to eat, know what you’re doing because
there are deadly relatives, including not
only our native water hemlock, but the
poison hemlock of Socrates-killing fame, and
its Euro-kin, fool’s parsley. And, there’s
also that public health-hazard, the giant
hogweed. Most family members start with a
basal rosette of leaves, and grow a tall,
hollow, round flower stalk which supports
one or more flattish clusters (“umbels”) of
tiny, 5-petal flowers. |
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| Picture: Queen Anne’s lace’s foliage is
almost indistinguishable from that of its child, the garden
carrot. A biannual, Queen Anne’s lace makes a basal rosette
of leaves the first year that stay green all winter in a
mild year. Queen Anne’s lace sprouts more leaves and then
flowers in the second year. Newly emerging spring leaves,
Bedford Street and Hoyt Street Alley Stamford CT April 2005.
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Distribution: Queen Anne’s lace
started its career in Eurasia and North
Africa, then hitchhiked around the world;
first along the Silk Road, and later in the
Tall Ships. It is said that Queen Anne’s
lace can’t establish itself without a
4-month frost-free growing season, and about
30 inches of rain (for comparison, in
Stamford, CT, we enjoy 5 to 6 frost-free
months most years, and about 41 inches of
rain). Accordingly, you can now find Queen
Anne’s lace anywhere in North America,
except the more arid central plains, and the
extreme north. You can also find Queen
Anne’s lace in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq,
Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, China, much
of the old USSR, the European Union, North
Africa, and as well as many other places.
It is reported that there are more than
12 variety of Queen Anne’s lace worldwide.
In North America, we mainly have the
standard biannual form but we also have an
annual variety. The biannual has been
declared a noxious weed in a few states. In
the view of the Army Corps of Engineers
(even they worry about invasive plants):
“Queen Anne’s lace displaces native species.
It is particularly problematic in open
fields and grasslands because it matures
faster and grows larger than many native
species. It can be persistent on heavy soils
with a good clay content”. Carrot and herb
farmers are said to dislike Queen Anne’s
lace (hence the noxious weed tag) because it
is very hard to isolate from their
carrot-family crops.
The Flowers: And, oh, yeah, the
flowers: Queen Anne’s lace does have them,
and they are beautiful, as well as
interesting. The plant blooms from late
spring until mid-fall. Each flower cluster
is made up of as many as a thousand tiny,
prefect white flowers, with a single
purplish flower in the cluster’s center. The
flower cluster starts out curled up and
opens with the flowers to allow pollination.
The cluster then rolls itself shut again,
like a reverse umbrella, into what’s called
a "birds' nest". When the seeds are ripe,
the umbel unfurls, and the tiny, spiny seeds
hitchhike on passers-by, including hikers,
mowers, and white-tailed deer. |
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| Picture: Queen Anne’s lace flower detail,
Bedford Street, Stamford, CT June 2005. |
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In The Garden: Queen Anne’s Lace
tends to get tall (3 to 5 feet) and
abundantly self-seeds. However, in the right
spot, its attractive feathery leaves, that
look just like those of its carrot children,
and the giant snowflake flowers are
wonderful and carefree (except for pulling
up the seedlings). You can avoid most of the
work part by deadheading the flowers, before
the seed cluster opens, leaving just a few
seed heads for the birds. Also, pull any
unwanted youngsters early before the tap
root gets too big.
Added garden benefits are the insects.
They say that Queen Anne’s lace attracts
over sixty kinds of insects. Not only do you
get the beneficial insects that munch up
your other bugs for you, and some cool
pollinators like honey bees, black
swallowtail butterflies are also a good
possibility. |
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| Picture: Queen Anne’s lace rolled into a
bird’s nest, waiting for the seeds to ripen, my mother’s
garden, Stamford CT Summer 2004. |
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Deer: Before I get the “will deer eat
it” question in the email, the answer is:
Some say that Queen Anne’s Lace is “deer
proof” but there is no such thing for a
starving animal. (Now, for a short but not
sweet editorial comment: If I see one more
advertisement for “deer resistant” plants or
one more article on “home remedies to ward
off deer”, I will vomit. When are humans
going to learn that “just keep them out of
my backyard” is the cruelest way to treat
less our fortunate neighbors, deer or
otherwise? If even a tiny bit of the money
spent on keeping deer out of yards was
spent, instead, on controlling the deer’s
ability to reproduce, we won’t have “the
deer problem”, including Lymes disease, a
horrible neurological crippler that doesn’t
spare human children. Unfortunately, in a
capitalist country, the dollar rules; and
the money is in selling you, the consumer,
dumb stuff with a high-mark up – not in
helping the states correct the deer
over-population that humans created.
Further, the irresponsibility of the
horticultural press who pander to these
commercial interests astounds me. Wise up
guys!)
In The House: Queen Anne’s lace is
great as a cut flower; commercial florists
use it extensively. Queen Anne’s Lace is
also great, if a bit messy, in dried
arrangements, and is wonderful for pressed
flower collages. The flower’s shape has
inspired lace makers for centuries. Indeed,
the local common name apparently refers to
Queen Anne of England, who reigned in the
early 1700’s. She was reputed to be an
expert lace maker but there are several
contradictory stories in circulation about
the connection between her and the flower. |
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| Picture: Queen Anne’s lace seed heads
persist through the winter, Waterside, Stamford CT Winter
2005. |
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