Queen Anne's Lace

This biennial herbaceous plant consists of a rosette of basal leaves during the first year, bolting upward during the second year to produce flowering stalks. The basal leaves are arching-spreading; their blades are up to 5" long and 2½" across, while their slender petioles are up to 5" long. Mature second-year plants are 2-5' tall. The central stem of second-year plants is light green (sometimes tinted red), vertically veined, terete, hollow, nearly glabrous to spreading-hairy, and sparingly branched. Alternate leaves occur sparingly along the central stem and any lateral stems of second-year plants; their blades are up to 4" long and 2" across. Instead of true petioles, alternate leaves are attached to sheaths that become partially detached from the stems. These sheaths are up to 2" long, light green, nearly glabrous, and trough-shaped. The blades of both basal leaves and alternate leaves are bipinnate-pinnatifid or pinnate-bipinnatifid in structure; their ultimate leaf segments are 3-10 mm. long, 1-4 mm. across, oblong-linear or narrowly rhombic in shape, and sometimes sparsely ciliate along their margins. The upper surface of these leaf segments is light-medium green and glabrous, while the lower surface is light green and glabrous to sparsely hairy. The rachises of the compound leaf blades and leaflets are narrowly furrowed above, convex or V-shaped below, and nearly glabrous to spreading-hairy. Overall, the appearance of compound leaves for this plant is rather lacy or fern-like. The foliage has a bitter-soapy aroma that is typical of carrots.

The upper stems terminate in solitary compound umbels of flowers on long naked stalks. These stalks are 4-20" long and similar to the stems, except they are more slender and and tend to be more hairy. The compound umbels of flowers are 2-5" across and flat-topped to slightly dome-shaped. Each compound umbel consists of 20-90 umbellets, and each umbellet has 15-60 flowers. Each flower is about 2-3 mm. across, consisting of 5 white petals, an insignificant calyx, a reddish bristly ovary with a white stylopodium at its apex, 5 white stamens, and a pair of white styles. The tips of the petals are incurved. Sometimes the petals of a flower in the middle of the compound umbel are reddish purple; very rarely are the petals of all flowers reddish purple. Pedicels of the flowers are light green and angular. The stalklets (rays) of the umbellets are light green, angular, and slightly hairy or pubescent. At the base of each umbellet, there are a small number of bractlets that are medium green and linear in shape (or they uncommonly have a few linear lobes). At the base of compound umbel, there are several bracts that are ½–2½" long, medium green, and pinnatifid with linear lobes (or they are uncommonly linear without lobes). The blooming period occurs from mid-summer to early autumn, lasting about 2 months. In the absence of insect cross-pollination, the flowers are self-fertile; they have no noticeable fragrance.