WEEDS OF SUMMER: QUEEN ANNE’S LACE
The Monday Garden, Eco-gardening at its best
June 19, 2005, Issue 169
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.
Picture: Queen Anne’s lace with a small, cute bee who is also a useful pollinator. Bedford Street Stamford CT Summer 2004.
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).