Queen Anne's Lace

The lacy flower head of Queen Anne's Lace is called an umbel, from Latin umbella (ae), parasol; the word is a diminutive form of umbra (ae), shadow or shade.

Each umbel has about thirty tiny white flowers in a flattened round, and sometimes the umbel has a purple center flower. The white flower bears two seeds and one fruit each: The flat inner sides of the seeds are stuck together until they are dry enough to separate, and the rounded outer sides are covered in burrs. The purple flower is sterile.

As the flower head dries, its stems close in on themselves like a parasol, eventually to let go of the parent plant and fly away. Seeds drop during flight or after landing, and some are carried even farther away by animals whose feather or fur picks up the burrs. So, nearly a failsafe system for making sure that seeds have a chance to find new ground.

Here's the kicker, though, and I was not ready for this. Nobody knows why some umbels have a central purple flower and some do not, and nobody knows why the purple flower is sterile.

Do you know about eol, Encyclopedia of Life? The purpose of which is to provide information about, and pictures of, every kind of life on the planet, all in one database. Eol is a wonderful resource for projects like this.

The word umbel was known to my old-lady Latin teacher through its use in Martial and Juvenal. Evidently the first use of the word umbel in English is in dispute, but the earliest reference seems to date to 1590.