Landlife Wildflowers

Wild Carrot

Daucus carota

Flowering season June to August/September
Height 45cm to 60cm

Biennial

Common in fields, grassy places, by the sea and on waste places, especially on light free draining soils, Wild Carrot is the latest flowering of our native wildflowers.  A high season wildflower, it can last through a mild autumn into September after most other wildflowers have finished.   The flat white flowerheads - like umbrellas - open as pale pink before becoming white rounded umbels.  They are  beautifully delicate with finely divided foliage and as they go to seed, the heads turn inwards to form bird’s nests.  The drying heads also make a lovely finale to the wildflower season, often combining with tall spikey headed teasels (Dipsacus fullonum).

Wild carrot is closely related to the cultivated vegetable carrot and its wiry roots and leaves have the same smell.  its fruits are very bristly. In the seveneteeth century Wild Carrot leaves were used to decorate ladies’ head-dresses; seeds were used to treat coughs,colic and hiccups and bladder infections.  Wild Carrot also produces a strong green dye.

As a biennial, Wild Carrot is short-lived but lasts longer in chalk or light sandy soils if grown with grasses.  Sow in Spring or Autumn,  It will self-seed readily.

Wild Carrot seed is available as a single seed species and in two of our Heritage Collections Downland and Heritage Meadow.