Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Q/ Alphabe-Thursday

QUEEN Anne's lace (Daucus carota) growing on the side of a road

Most people in Ontario call this wildflower  - some say noxious weed - Queen Anne's lace. But this plant is also known as wild carrot, bird's' nests and bishop's lace.

The lace part is pretty easy to explain, but why Queen Anne's? The dark red in the centre of each umbrel represents a droplet of Queen Anne's blood where she pricked herself with a needle while making the lace.

Wild carrot? Cultivated carrots were developed from this plant...centuries ago.

Birds' nests? Please keep reading.


Queen Anne's  lace growing beside railroad tracks

Europeans brought Queen Anne's lace to North America as a medicinal plant. Now across much of Ontario it grows in old pastures, meadows, waste places and along roadsides and even railway tracks.

Queen Anne's lace just opening out

Umbrels of Queen Anne's lace are pink when they first open.  When in full bloom each umbrel turns white and the top is concave. (See first photo.)

Birds' Nests?

After they go to seed,  the umbrels contract again resembling a birds' nests.

I am linking to Jenny Matlock at Alphabe-Thursday HERE


35 comments:

Míriam Luiza said...

Que lindas essas flores! Eu não conhecia!

joco said...

Nice to put the railway track picture in with this sequence.So many plants spread their seeds by means of the railways.

TexWisGirl said...

nice shots and great info on this lovely!

Judie said...

One of my favorite flowers of all time! And I did know it is in the carrot family. What a wonderful post!!!! Your photos are terrific!!

kayerj said...

very pretty

My Oatmeal Kisses said...

So cool!

Personalized Sketches and Sentiments said...

Beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing this info too! I love to hear the stories behind things! I've never heard of them called Bird's Nests, but yes, it is a fitting name! I think that they are like a bundle of little wedding bouquets!

Blessings & Aloha!
Oh! Thank you so much for your lovely visit. I love sewing the Cathedral Windows quilt, and once I kept it out for me to work on (especially on road trips), it was completed pretty quickly...it was that I had it put away for so long :o) ...now on to another baby quilt :o)

Rocky Mountain Woman said...

One of my very favorites!

lovely pics..

Anonymous said...

Quite lovely! And thanks for the science lesson, too. I enjoyed learning about a flower I've always loved.

Rose said...

You just told me a lot of stuff I did not know...we have it everywhere down here, too.

jennyfreckles said...

Fascinating stuff. It's a pretty flower, we have similar here and I think that's the one we call Lady Lace. I was interested in your comment about Fireweed on my blog too - I didn't know that.

Lois Evensen said...

Lovely to see Queen Anne's Lace at all stages. There is plenty of it here in Ohio, too.

Barbara F. said...

I love these photos, especially the train tracks! I never knew these were called birds' nests. Thanks for stopping by. xo,

Pat said...

One of my favorite wild flowers - in all its stages...your images are just wonderful and show the lifespan of this old fashioned flower.

Judy said...

I always seem to learn something here. Wonderful photos!

Michelle said...

This grows on our farm and I love it.

Andrea said...

very informative, but that first photo is very beautiful with those patterns of different colors parallel to each other. I love it. I wonder what part of the flower is that red part or "blood part".

George said...

I've always known this as Queen Anne's Lace. Thanks for the explanation of the other names. Thanks, too, for the wonderful pictures.

Kathy said...

We have tons of Queen Anne's lace around these parts and I even featured it on my blog I believe back in May or June but I certainly don't remember ever seeing the "drop of blood" in the center. I need to go back and look at my photo! Thanks for all the info.

Jack said...

Very pretty. Birdman showed some Queen Anne's Lace recently, too.

Anonymous said...

Beautiful pictures, and I love the stories you've included about Queen Anne's Lace.

Teresa

Small City Scenes said...

Beautiful, EG and the info is wonderful.
We have Queen Anne's Lace growing just about everywhere here too.

Love you collage in the previous post.

MB

Indrani said...

This is informative! I didn't know it belongs to carrot family.

Anonymous said...

Your post has definitely given this queen her due. Nice job!

Francisca said...

Terrific Q post. I know next to nothing about Queen Anne's Lace, except that it's pretty. Great to see the different stages of development. And your macro is delightful... with the frame.

Theresa Plas said...

You always have the BEST photos on Alpha T's! I did not know that about the prick of blood...very interesting...thanks for sharing all.

Halcyon said...

Very interesting. I haven't seen any in my neighborhood yet, but I'll be on the lookout. :)

Gattina said...

It grows here too, like weed ! I never thought that it had such a sophisticated name, lol !

Susan Anderson said...

It's lovely! And well-named, too.

=)

ellen b. said...

I like this weed and it's great to use in bouquets...
Nice shots...

Lucas Kain said...

Nice! ^^ Haven't seen any of those for a loooong time. But probably due to the reason I've been stuck in the city. Thanks!

___
call Nepal

Ann, Chen Jie Xue 陈洁雪 said...

This is beautiful, they show us different stages of the flower in one day. I like your pink in the new flower. I had a similar recording last summer.

We have another polar blast in our South Island, yet we have a glorious day in Auckland.

Pondside said...

I've been making bouquets of Queen Anne's Lace for the past two or three weeks. We seem to have a lot of it in the field this year and I love it!

Unknown said...

Wow, what a pretty flower :) These are very lovely shots of the flowers in its various stages of growth! I wonder why some people consider them weeds.

Jenny said...

I love Queen Anne's lace. I find it hard to categorize that amazing floral work of art as a weed. It is just stunning.

I'm intriqued with the idea of laying it on a board and spray painting over it to see if it would cast the image, but, alas, it doesn't grow here in Arizona.

Thanks for quite a lovely link to the letter "Q".

This made my heart smile.

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East Gwillimbury is a rural town less than an hour north of Toronto, Canada's largest city. My family calls me CameraGirl because I take my camera with me wherever I go.