A lacy white umbel, often with one dark purple floret in its centre, ringed by three-forked bracts, which curls into a 'bird's nest' as the fruits ripen
Wild carrot - Daucus carota.
Nature · Wildflowers & flowers
Wild carrot
Native · biennial, flowers June to September · chalk grassland, verges, sea cliffs
Daucus carota — Apiaceae
Wild carrot is the white-flowered umbellifer of dry, chalky grassland and sea cliffs, and the ancestor of the cultivated carrot. Its lacy umbels often have one tiny dark purple floret in the middle, and as the fruits ripen the whole head curls up into a concave 'bird's nest'. The roots smell of carrot but are pale, thin and woody.
How to spot them
- ▸Flat-topped umbel of tiny white flowers, often with a single dark red-purple floret at the centre
- ▸Long, three-pronged, leafy bracts below the umbel, like a ruff
- ▸Hairy, solid, ridged stem; finely divided, feathery leaves
- ▸In fruit the umbel folds inward into a concave bird's-nest shape
- ▸Carrot smell when crushed. Look-alikes: cow parsley flowers earlier, has a hollow stem and no ruff of bracts; hemlock has a smooth, purple-blotched stem and is deadly poisonous
How to know it
Ancestor of a familiar orange root vegetable, whose own roots are pale, thin and tough but smell of it
Wild carrot - the crop is Daucus carota subsp. sativus.
Told from a spring-flowering hedgerow umbellifer with a hollow stem and no ruff of bracts
Wild carrot (cow parsley, Anthriscus sylvestris, is the look-alike).
Told from a deadly poisonous umbellifer by its hairy, solid stem, which has no purple blotches
Wild carrot (hemlock, Conium maculatum, has a smooth blotched stem).
In North America this naturalised plant is called Queen Anne's lace
Wild carrot.
The fruits carry hooked bristles, and the dry umbels are visited by many hoverflies, beetles and other insects
Wild carrot.
Quick-fire facts
- •Family Apiaceae (formerly Umbelliferae); Wildlife Trusts give the flowering time as June to September and the height as up to 75 cm
- •The central dark floret is often present but not always; its function is debated
- •Native; commonest on chalk, dunes and coastal grassland, less common in Scotland
- •The wild subspecies is Daucus carota subsp. carota; sea carrot, subsp. gummifer, is a stocky coastal form
- •The cultivated carrot is Daucus carota subsp. sativus; early cultivated carrots were purple or yellow, and orange varieties were developed later, notably in the Netherlands
- •The roots and leaves smell of carrot, but the wild root is not like our cultivated favourite (Wildlife Trusts)
- •Fruits are covered with hooked spines that cling to animals
- •Never eat an umbellifer you cannot identify with certainty - hemlock and hemlock water-dropwort are deadly
Drill it — 6 cards
1 / 6new card
Sources
- The Wildlife Trusts — Wild carrot