Queen or Killer: Queen Anne’s Lace

One summer day, I took some letters down to the mailbox to be mailed. The mailbox sits on the edge of the ditch on the far side of the road. Around it grasses and weeds had grown up thick and healthy. I put the flag up to alert the rural mail carrier that there was mail inside, and found several flowers blooming there. The mail carrier will be asking us to clear out all the weeds soon, but meanwhile what is this particular flower? It’s a pretty thing—a cluster of little five-petaled white flowers in an umbel shape—that is looking like a little umbrella with each flower standing on its own stem, and all the stems fanning out from the same point.

It looks like Queen Anne’s lace, also known as wild carrot. It also looks a lot like poison hemlock. The leaves and flowers of the two plants look very similar. You can actually eat the wild carrot if you get it before it goes all woody, but if you eat any part of the poison hemlock, it can literally kill you. Remember Socrates who was put to death with a cup of hemlock tea? That’s where they got the poison.

There is also a tree called hemlock, and until now I had confused these two things, thinking that good old Socrates’ tea was made from the needles of the evergreen tree. Wrong. The tree is not poisonous. It is related to pine trees and develops needles and cones like them. Why this confusion? Surely there are enough words in the English language to give these two very different plants separate and distinct names. The connection seems to be that if you crush the needles of the hemlock tree, and if you crush the leaves of the poisonous hemlock plant, they smell about the same—nasty like a mouse nest.

But back to the dilemma—wild carrot or deadly poison? Neither plant is native to Iowa. The poison hemlock was introduced as a garden plant in the 1800s and marketed as a winter fern. Now it is considered invasive and grows wild. Efforts are underway in some places to eradicate it because of its danger to both humans and livestock.

Queen Anne’s lace on the other hand originated in Asia and made its way to Europe where it became the ancestor of the carrots we know. It was introduced to America by early settlers. But now it too is considered a noxious weed in 35 states and enjoys such names as devil’s plague and rantipole (which means rude and reckless) because it is so hard to get rid of. It’s also called bee’s nest, bird’s nest and lace flower.

Queen Anne’s Lace Umbel. A half-ball of tiny white flowers, surrounding a single purple flower in the center.

Poison Hemlock Flower Head. A many-branched flower head setting seeds on a Poison Hemlock

Both the wild carrot and poison hemlock display a two-inch or so flower head or umbel with dozens of tiny white flowers—very pretty. Both have similar fern-like leaves, and both grow in Iowa along the ditches and in untended weed patches. So what did we have here—benign and pretty Queen Anne’s lace, or pretty and deadly poison hemlock?

There are actually several tells to differentiate the plants if you look carefully. For one thing, Queen Anne’s lace grows about three feet tall, while poison hemlock can grow six to eight feet tall. My plant was about even with the mailbox, so closer to three feet tall.

Poison hemlock flowers in the spring. My plant was in full bloom in high summer.

The stems of Queen Anne’s lace are hairy while the hemlock stems are smooth with brown or purple spots on them. Mine was hairy without spots.

Queen Anne’s Lace Fuzzy Stem. Close up of Queen Anne’s Lace stem. Dense, soft white hairs give the stem a fuzzy appearance

Poison Hemlock Smooth Blotchy Stem. Close up of Poison Hemlock stem. Smooth, with small purple and brown spots

Poison hemlock develops clusters of flower heads whereas Queen Anne only manages one at the top of each stalk. I only had one little umbrella of flowers.

Hemlock flowers are all white while Queen Anne, in a moment of joy, often plops a red or purple bloom in the center of the flowers. Actually, maybe it wasn’t joy. Legend says that while Queen Anne was making her lace, she pricked her finger, and a drop of blood marked the center flower. I like the joy idea better. Oh yes, here’s a purple flower in the center.

The verdict—Queen Anne’s lace, wild carrot. Although Queen Anne’s lace is invasive and not native to Owl Acres, native insects have taken to them for nectar, and it is a host plant for black swallowtail caterpillars and many butterflies and adult bees. The plant is biennial, with a two-year life cycle that ends with thousands of seeds being dispersed to spread the joy far and wide.

According to popular legend (and who doesn’t love popular legend?) the Queen Anne the flowers are named for lived from 1574 to 1619. She married James I of England, of the King James Bible fame. She was said to be an excellent lace maker, and lace collars, extending out several inches all around, were all the rage in courts of that time. Queen Anne is said to have organized a contest among her ladies to see who could create a lace pattern modeled on her favorite wild flower. The flower, of course, was Queen Anne’s lace.

Queen Anne’s Lace and Poison Hemlock together. Short stand of Queen Anne’s Lace in the foreground. Taller Poison Hemlock towers overhead in the background.

Meanwhile, we do have poison hemlock growing in a near-by ditch. Its flowers are past and seeds maturing, but it is clearly the poisonous, noxious, ought-to-be-eradicated hemlock. The best thing to do is to leave anything that looks like that alone.

All Photos by Author. Feature photo alt text: A rural mailbox surrounded by flower stalks topped with lacy umbels of tiny, white flowers. Queen Anne’s Lace.