Blooming in May: Wild Carrot - גזר קפח

May 2019 Iyar תשע"ט

What’s in bloom in Israel this month?

Gezer HaKipeach - גזר קפח  - Wild Carrot - Daucus Carota

The glorious spring flowers seem to be finishing, the wheat and barley and all the grains are turning yellow, spring is slipping into summer.  Yet gradually a dome appears almost hovering like a UFO above the foliage. From the distance it looks like umbrellas on a sandy beach, dullish white or cream umbrellas. This is the Wild Carrot or Daucus Carota and these domes can grow up to 30cm in diameter and up to 2 metres high!!

Fried Carrot Flower

Our better known carrot was cultivated from the Wild Carrot and it is all edible – the flower, the root and the leaves. As with most spring foraging, the younger leaves and stalks are always tastier before they flower and the flower is also tasty when young - at the pink stage.  Foragers fry up the flower like a shnitzel and it is a real delicacy.  I experimented with this and it was definitely tasty, although isn't everything fried tasty?  Of course this had the added benefits of lots of beta carotene and vitamin k! There are many similar flowers out there, most importantly if you are planning to eat this then you mustn't confuse it with Poison Hemlock.  Check out my quick guide how to tell the difference: 

When you get close up to this flower, you will be astounded by its intricacy. Each dome contains up to a hundred little domes and each of these are made up of dozens of tiny little flowers.  Before it goes into full bloom it actually starts off a delicate shade of pink but as the flowers open they emerge as off white.  Its lace like quality and intricate patchwork of tiny flowers earned it the name ‘Queen Anne’s Lace’ after the royal lace-maker Queen Anne of Great Britain in the 18^th Century.

From a distance you can see a black spot in the middle (supposedly where Queen Anne pricked herself and bled on the lace!)  Is it a bug? Is it a fly? No, this is the flowers way of ensuring its continuance.  We humans are naturally curious and if we see a crowd of people we will go and see what is going on.  I used to play a childhood game where a few of us would stand on the street looking up and pointing (at nothing at all) just to see how many other people would look up and try to see what we were seeing.   The wild carrot is doing the same to its own natural pollinators.  By placing a small clump of brown petals that look like a fly in the middle, it is tempting other flies and bugs to come and check it out.

Once it is pollinated it develops tiny fruits of 2-3 mm.  In spring we are used to seeing seeds flying around on parachutes or sticking to our clothes but the wild carrots holds onto its seeds tight until the winter.  The seeded flower gradually closes up into a tight ball and only opens up and releases its seeds during the rainy season.

 

The carrot will carry on flowering until August so get used to seeing it on the horizon!

 
 Crown Flower שפרירה קשקשנית

Poison Hemlock רוש עקוד

(Photo Courtesy of US Department of Agriculture)

Photos by Yasmin Maissel