3 ms·

I was thinking about this as well. It also looks like Queen Anne's lace lol. If anybody is going to go forage for this, please learn to ID the poisonous relativ

I was thinking about this as well. It also looks like Queen Anne's lace lol. If anybody is going to go forage for this, please learn to ID the poisonous relatives first!

b3morales 5y ago
Queen Anne's Lace is wild carrot, Daucus carota, which is not poisonous.
- hinkley 5y ago
  About 75% of QAL flowers also have a single black umbel in the center of the flower. Not the best eating then from what I gather, but in addition to the texture of the stalks that's a good indicator.
- DennisP 5y ago
  Yes, the point is that it looks similar to water hemlock, which is extremely poisonous.
- derbOac 5y ago
  Yes, just to emphasize this: in this case "wild carrots" actually means just that. Carrots from the grocery store and Queen Anne's lace are two subvarieties of the same species.
Vrondi 5y ago
But no, it doesn't look like Queen Anne's Lace. Queen Anne's lace grows in a very flat circle of small white flowers, not this dome shape made of tiny domes. Queen Anne's lace has a dark spot in the center of the disk of flowers. Queen Anne's lace does not have reddish or purplish stems. Queen Anne's lace has an incredibly distinctive smell. Do people not engage their eyeballs and brains at all?
- jrgoff 5y ago
  If you don't have a background in plants and just learned about something from reading about it somewhere and decide to give it a try (might not even know there are poisonous plants that look somewhat alike), those sorts of details can be hard to notice and distinguish at first. Even as someone who has a pretty good background with plants at this point, I have occasionally been surprised at initially misidentifying something because the individual plant had an unusual presentation or was in a different growth stage than I was used to and I wasn't being super careful. I did spend some time learning about the poisonous plants in my area though and am extra careful with things that have other poisonous plants that look similar.

I was thinking about this as well. It also looks like Queen Anne's lace lol. If anybody is going to go forage for this, please learn to ID the poisonous relatives first!

b3morales 5y ago

Queen Anne's Lace is wild carrot, Daucus carota, which is not poisonous.

hinkley 5y ago
About 75% of QAL flowers also have a single black umbel in the center of the flower. Not the best eating then from what I gather, but in addition to the texture of the stalks that's a good indicator.
DennisP 5y ago
Yes, the point is that it looks similar to water hemlock, which is extremely poisonous.
derbOac 5y ago
Yes, just to emphasize this: in this case "wild carrots" actually means just that. Carrots from the grocery store and Queen Anne's lace are two subvarieties of the same species.

Vrondi 5y ago

But no, it doesn't look like Queen Anne's Lace. Queen Anne's lace grows in a very flat circle of small white flowers, not this dome shape made of tiny domes. Queen Anne's lace has a dark spot in the center of the disk of flowers. Queen Anne's lace does not have reddish or purplish stems. Queen Anne's lace has an incredibly distinctive smell. Do people not engage their eyeballs and brains at all?

jrgoff 5y ago
If you don't have a background in plants and just learned about something from reading about it somewhere and decide to give it a try (might not even know there are poisonous plants that look somewhat alike), those sorts of details can be hard to notice and distinguish at first. Even as someone who has a pretty good background with plants at this point, I have occasionally been surprised at initially misidentifying something because the individual plant had an unusual presentation or was in a different growth stage than I was used to and I wasn't being super careful. I did spend some time learning about the poisonous plants in my area though and am extra careful with things that have other poisonous plants that look similar.