Wild Carrot

The white flowers of the Wild Carrot appear in June, the centre flower of the umbel often being red.
This species has been sponsored by: 
Rob Tomlinson

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Daucus carota carota
Family: 
Umbellifers
Family Latin name: 
APIACEAE or UMBELLIFERAE
Category: 
Flowering Plants
Vernacular names: 

Queen Anne's Lace, Bird's-nest

Species description

Species description

The white flowers of Wild Carrot appear in June, the centre flower of the umbel often being red.  The lower bracts are conspicuously three-forked.  Gradually the umbels become hollowly concave, when they are known as Queen Anne's Lace.  As she had 17 pregnancies during her reign, not one of her offspring surviving, one wonders when she found the time to adorn herself with fine lace, or indeed to run the country.  This native umbellifer is not the precursor of our garden carrot.  The small woody root is edible but has a strong smell and an acrid taste.  Carrot tea is useful for dropsy, kidney and bladder conditions, intestinal instability (colic, dysentery, flatulence), and gout.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)
The white flowers of the Wild Carrot appear in June, the centre flower of the umbel often being red.
Umbellifers, the Wild Carrot included, are mostly aromatic herbaceous plants with alternate feather-divided leaves.
Gradually the umbels of Wild Carrot become hollowly concave, when they are known as Queen Anne's Lace.
The white flowers of the Wild Carrot appear in June, the centre flower of the umbel often being red.
The small woody root of Wild Carrot is edible but has a strong smell and an acrid taste.
The lower bracts of the Wild Carrot are conspicuously three-forked.

Details

Species family information

These are mostly aromatic herbaceous plants with alternate feather-divided leaves that are sheathed at the base. The family contains both useful edible members and intensely poisonous ones, so correct identification before harvesting is vital.

Category information

Nucleic multicellular photosynthetic organisms lived in freshwater communities on land as long ago as a thousand million years, and their terrestrial descendants are known from the late Pre-Cambrian 850 million years ago. Embryophyte land plants are known from the mid Ordovician, and land plant structures such as roots and leaves are recognisable in mid Devonian fossils. Seeds seem to have evolved by the late Devonian. The Embryophytes are green land plants that form the bulk of the Earth’s vegetation. They have specialised reproductive organs and nurture the young embryo sporophyte. Most obtain their energy by photosynthesis, using sunlight to synthesise food from Carbon Dioxide and Water.

The earliest known plant group is the Archaeplastida, which were autotrophic. Listing just the surviving descendants, which evolved in turn, we have the Red Algae, the Chlorophyte Green Algae, the Charophyte Green Algae, and then the Embryophyta or land plants. The earliest embryophytes were the Liverworts, followed by the Hornworts, and the Mosses. Then we have the Vascular Plants, the Lycophytes and Ferns, followed by the Spermatophytes or seed plants, the Gnetophytes, Conifers, Ginkgos, and Cycads, and finally the Magnoliophyta (Angiosperms) or flowering plants.