What is Queen Anne's lace?

Queen Anne’s lace identification is about more than knowing a pretty wildflower. This biennial, also called wild carrot, is the wild ancestor of the garden carrot. It came from Europe and southwest Asia and now grows across Pennsylvania along roads, in old fields and anywhere the mower doesn’t reach.

It isn’t on the state noxious weed list, and in a meadow planting it’s mostly harmless. But it can crowd pasture grass, move into rough lawns and beds, and, most importantly, it looks enough like poison hemlock that every property owner should know the difference.

It’s also a favorite of pollinators and the host plant for black swallowtail caterpillars, which is why some homeowners leave a few in meadow areas on purpose. The trick is keeping it where you want it.

Queen Anne's lace identification: what to look for

Wild carrot spends its first year as a low rosette of feathery leaves, then sends up a flowering stalk in its second summer before dying.

• Leaves: finely divided and fern-like, slightly hairy, with a clear carrot smell when you crush one (gloves on).
• Stem: green, solid and covered in short bristly hairs. No purple blotches.
• Flowers: a flat, lacy white cluster 2 to 4 inches across, made of many tiny flowers. Many clusters have a single dark purple floret right in the middle.
• Bracts: stiff, forked, thread-like bracts flare out underneath the cluster.
• Seed head: as it ripens, the cluster folds inward into a cup that looks like a bird’s nest. The seeds have hooked bristles that cling to fur and pant legs.
• Root: a thin, pale taproot that smells like carrot.

Where it grows in Pennsylvania

Wild carrot prefers sun and dry to average soil. In our area you’ll see it lining roadsides, in hayfields and pastures, on reclaimed and vacant lots, in unmowed lawn corners and along field edges. It’s a classic plant of old farm fields that are going back to meadow.

It doesn’t hold up well to regular mowing, so it’s rarely a problem in a maintained lawn. Where it does show up in yards, it’s usually in thin, low-fertility turf or along the edges where the mower skips.

Pastures are where it causes the most trouble. Livestock tend to leave it alone, so in an overgrazed field it gets more and more room each year while the grass around it gets eaten down.

Queen Anne's lace look-alikes

The comparison that matters most is poison hemlock. Hemlock grows 3 to 8 feet tall, has smooth, hairless stems with purple blotches, and smells musty instead of like carrot. Wild carrot stays shorter, with hairy green stems. If you’re not certain, treat it as hemlock.

Wild chervil blooms earlier in spring and lacks the dark center floret and forked bracts. Yarrow has similar flat white clusters, but each tiny flower is a little daisy and the leaves are narrow and feathery along the stem.

How to get rid of Queen Anne's lace

Because it’s a biennial that spreads only by seed, wild carrot is a weed you can usually handle yourself.

• Dig or pull rosettes: with gloves on, use a weeding fork or narrow spade to lift the taproot in spring or fall. Moist soil helps. Get as much root as you can, since a broken root can regrow.
• Cut before seed: if plants are flowering, cut them at the base before the clusters curl into bird’s nests. Bag seed heads so the bristly seeds don’t scatter.
• Mow: in rough areas, regular mowing keeps it from flowering. In lawns, mow at 3 to 3.5 inches and keep turf fed so rosettes are crowded out.
• Mulch beds: a 2 to 3 inch layer of mulch keeps seeds from sprouting in landscape beds.

For a handful of plants in a yard, pulling and cutting is honestly all you need. Save herbicides for pasture-scale problems.

Herbicides: broadleaf products work best on young rosettes in fall or spring before the plant bolts. In lawns and pastures, products containing 2,4-D, dicamba or triclopyr are commonly labeled for it; once it flowers, control drops off. Read and follow the product label, since the label is the law, and confirm it’s labeled for your site, especially in pastures with grazing restrictions. Applying herbicide for hire in PA requires a PA Department of Agriculture pesticide applicator certification, so field-sized jobs go to a licensed vegetation-management company.

Keeping it from coming back

Keep turf and pasture grass thick and don’t let plants go to seed. A couple of seasons of cutting before the bird’s nests form will thin it out a lot.

If you like the look, a few plants in a meadow corner are fine. Just keep them out of pastures and away from areas where kids play, and make sure everyone in the family knows how to tell it from poison hemlock.

Remember that each plant dies after it seeds. If you stop new seed for two or three years, the stand runs out of replacements and shrinks on its own.

Questions we get about queen anne's lace (wild carrot)

Similar weeds

Poison HemlockConium maculatumWild ChervilAnthriscus sylvestrisWild ParsnipPastinaca sativa