Barbara Lawton's Parsleys, Fennels and Queen Anne's Lace
The Not So Humble Umbel There is a family that includes sweet, spicy and poisonous among its almost 3,000 members. Barbara Lawton, award winning writer and photographer wrote about this plant family in her book, Parsleys, Fennels and Queen Anne’s Lace. Here are a few items from the book to whet your appetite to learn more and then add them to your garden. The family name varies from umbel, Umbelliferae and Apiaceae, but includes the plant that Socrates used to commit suicide, hemlock, and one of American’s favorite vegetables, the carrot In a telephone interview from her home near St. Louis, Lawton said, Gardeners can just wander around the mint family planting any of them. That is not true of the Umbels-parsley family. People don’t realize how poisonous some of these plants, like hemlock, are. Hemlock and Queen Anne’s Lace look very similar. What would Mexican food be without cilantro or German food without caraway? Sausage has to have fennel and potato salad has to have celery. All ...