Queen Anne's Lace

Apiaceae

LIFE FORM: Biennial

NATIVITY: Eurasia

VEGETATIVE CHARACTERISTICS:

A tall, slender plant that grows to 3 or 4 feet; pinnately compound foliage has a delicate look and a carrot-like odor.

FLOWERS:

White, lace-like flowers in a flat-topped clusters from July through September; a single, deep purple flower can always be found in the center of the cluster (the "fairy seat").

FRUIT/DISPERSAL AGENTS:

One plant can produce up to 4000 seeds which germinate readily in spring.

ECOLOGICAL PREFERENCE:

Minimally maintained public parks and open space; vacant lots and rubble dump sites; abandoned grasslands (meadows); rock outcrops and stone walls; unmowed highway banks and median strips with frequent salt applications; railroad tracks with ballast substrate.

ENVIRONMENTAL FUNCTION:

Disturbance-adapted colonizer.

CULTURAL SIGNIFICANCE:

Seeds are used in traditional European medicine as a contraceptive and are chewed to reduce fertility in India. Included by Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in his five volume herbal, De Materia Medica, which was written in the first century AD and remained in active use into the 1600s.