HERB - HERB Queen Ann's Lace

[Gaylin Walli]

John Day delurked and kindly asked us:
>how do you know the diffrence between Queen Ann's Lace and the
>much less edible plants which impersonate it?

You very very very carefully check everything you know about
the plant and then admire it and leave it alone? :)

For anyone interested in identifying the Umbelliferaes plants to
which Queen Ann(e)'s Lace belongs I highly recommend caution.
However, as I was taught, there are few things you can look
for, none of which substitute for taking the plant to a local
herbarium or college botany department and having them positively
ID it:

Daucus carota, known as Wild Carrot or Queen Ann(e)'s Lace has
these identifying characteristics (among others):

1. it has a hairy stem
2. it sometimes has purple blotches (not purple spots) on the stems
3. the white root smells like a carrot
4. It often has a few purple flowers in the center of the umbel
   (think umbel-rella like flower arrangement). This unique part of
   the plant that that ensures pollinating insects travel to the
   center of the umbel.

Conium maculatum, also known as Poison Hemlock, and which is very
often confused with Wild Carrot because it grows in the same
habitat, has these identifying characteristics (among others):

1. it has no hair on the stems (glabrous)
2. it has purple spots on the stems
3. the root smells bad, quite a bit like urine, actually

But to be honest, the best way I tell them apart is by their
seeds. Smell alone would be a bad way to identify the plant. What
I remember of the seeds is that the Wild Carrot has seeds with
little bristles on them that will stick to you if you brush by it.
They look sort of prickly. The Poison Hemlock has smooth seeds with
no visible pricklies. Am I remembering correctly listfriends?

Does this help? I can't stress enough that I've not formally trained
in any of this and that I'm going on what I remember alone. Don't
trust my word for it! Don't eat anything you can't positively,
without question, ID as guaranteed to be the plant you want.

>And what would be a good way to prepare the root of this plant
>for eating.

I just don't think I would. I think i'd be too scared of misidentifying
the plant. However, I do have a few old farm wive's journals that
say that wives use to make pancakes and as the cake was cooking, they
would take the flower head, tip it upside down into the batter, and
snip the flowers off so that they'd cook into the cake. I can't
find any reference to why they would do this, though, other than
the possible birth control properties that Hippocrates mentions in
his writings. Anyone else know?

Jasmine de Cordoba, Midrealm
g.walli at infoengine.com or jasmine at infoengine.com

"Si enim alicui placet mea devotio, gaudebo; si autem
nulli placet, memet ipsam tamen juvat quod feci."
-- Hroswith of Gandersheim
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