HERB - Re: Queen Ann's Lace

[khkeeler]

Jasmine wrote:
> 
> 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.
<a list of characters for telling Queen Anne's Lace from poison hemlock>
The North American floras I checked separate them chiefly by seed
characters as Jasmine said.  Very few other characters in the
description differed between them.  Poison hemlock can get much bigger
(3 m., 9 ft.) than Queen Anne's lace/wild carrot (1.6m, 4 feet) but
everything can be shrunken under the right conditions.  In Calontir,
Queen Anne's lace isn't found in the west of the Kingdom, poison hemlock
is.  

I would add that under parsley the _Tacunitum Sanitatis_ (Four Seasons
of the House of Ceruti edition) recommends growing your own because you
are too likely to be fooled by poison hemlock when gathering it.
So you could take is as Period advice to grow it not gather it.  Maybe
gather one, get it very carefully identified, and then grow Queen Anne's
lace in your yard where you won't be confused.  
And, the more you work with the plants, the more confident you'll be
about which is which.  The penalties of error in this case are pretty
nasty.

Agnes
Mistress Agnes deLanvallei, Mag Mor, in northwest Calontir
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