Wild Carrot Seed

Description

Daucus carota

Also know as Queen Anne’s lace because of the white lacey flower heads produced in summer. The centre of the flower-head is often tinged with purple. They are highly decorative. As the seeds develop after flowering, the head turns in on itself to make a lacey basket or bird’s nest. An easy to grow biennial which occurs on dry scrubby land and waysides. The roots are white and skinny, smelling of carrot but not worth eating! Needs to be direct sown, in autumn, where it is going to flower. Doesn’t mow well, so grow in rougher, longer meadows/swards. Self seeds. Good for insects and is the food plant for the european strain of Swallowtail butterfly caterpillars

Seed from Cheshire

Flower pic courtesy of Leonora (Ellie) Enking from East Preston, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

seedhead pic  Cbaile19, Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication via Wikimedia Commons