Thursday, July 19, 2012

Phenology: Queen Anne's Lace

The blogger known as Neverspent captured some fresh, pretty images of wild Daucus carota, or Queen Anne's Lace, back in May. Neverspent reports that locally these flowers have dried out in the drought. Where I am, we had a drought--not long enough to make up for the previous wet years--and are now super-soaked again, and Queen Anne's Lace is in full bloom.

http://neverspent.dreamwidth.org/118573.html

If you selectively breed these plants for sweeter, yellower roots, you get carrots. If you plant carrots and let them reseed and reappear next year, you get a bed of Queen Anne's Lace.

Do either carrots or Queen Anne's Lace really attract all that many of the nasty little biting mites some people call chiggers--more than any other plant? Hard to say. I've heard this saying explained by people who mistook the black center of the flower for a "chigger." The center of the flower is much bigger than the mite. In some years, some parts of the country are rich in chiggers, but since the mites are selective about whom they bite, travel fast for their size, and are almost never seen until they're picked out of bitten skin, it's hard to pinpoint which plants harbor them.

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