Queen Anne's Lace, wild carrot
On the way back from the marina today, I stopped to take some photos of weeds in the farm fields. I think this is Queen Anne's lace, which isn't native to California, but has naturalized quite well.
It has umbels of tiny white flowers and leaves that look just like carrot leaves. So what do you think, is it Queen Anne's lace?
I'm getting desperate for white flowers now. Everywhere I go I'm craning my neck to check for them. I hope I can make it nine more days!
It could be cow parsley which was called Queen Anne's lace, and it is definitely not wild carrot which has much bigger and more compact heads although all of the umbelliferae belong to the carrot family. The umbelliferae are very confusing to identify. The great authority on British flora (Mabey) dismisses all the usual stories about Queen Anne getting married, having asthma etc, and suggests that the name is an import from North America. It has lots of local names in Britain including somewhat macabrely mothers or mummys die, probably because it resembles quite closely a lot of very poisonous plants like hemlock
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