Daucus carota

Biennial with a stout taproot, 4-10 dm, hirsute to subglabrous; lvs oblong, pinnately decompound, the ultimate segments linear, lanceolate, or oblong; infl at anthesis showy, 4-12 cm wide, commonly narrower in fr, the outer rays longer than the others (to 7 cm) and arching inwards; bracts pinnatifid into firm, elongate, filiform-subulate segments, scarious-margined below the segments, spreading or reflexed in fr; umbellets with mostly (10-)20- numerous white or faintly yellowish fls (the central fl of the whole infl usually, the others rarely, purple or pink); fr 3-4 mm, broadest at the middle; 2n=18. Native of Eurasia, now a weed throughout most of N. Amer. The cultivated carrot is a race of this sp.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

Infrequent to common in all parts of the state but rarely found in a prairie habitat. The flowers vary in color from white to yellow; 11 of my 33 specimens have one or more purple flowers in the inflorescence; rarely there is an inflorescence with rose colored flowers. Millspaugh has named the rose colored form, forma rosea. Farwell calls the form without purple flowers, forma epurpurata. (See Grier. Variation in the flower of the wild carrot. Torreya 22: 64-66. 1922.) Often called Queen Anne's-lace.

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Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = null, non-native

Wetland Indicator Status: UPL

Diagnostic Traits: biennial, with retrorsely hispid stems; basal leaves pinnately decompound with slender ultimate segments; bracts numerous; rays numerous and becoming incurved into a "bird's nest" as fruits ripen; flowers white; fruits with bristly ribs.