One can spend years farming, a lifetime eating, and even multiple generations can go by without learning about botany. You don’t need it to interact with plants on a personal level, and our intuition can take us far. However, I remember the summer I went from a basic grasp on botany, plant identification, and herbalism to a solid, working understanding of these disciplines. It was the summer that I learned about plant families.
In The Learning Garden Series, I will be featuring one of the different plant families that are comprised of the foods and herbs we grow. This week, we have two herbs and one vegetable in the carrot family going out in the CSA. Let’s talk about the characteristics of Apiaceae, or the carrot family. But first, why is it worth learning about the taxonomic categories of the plants we know and love?
Why botany matters:
From a growers perspective, being able to classify plants that have similar needs, common pests and diseases, preferred propagation methods, and more help us plan for crop rotations. For example, we put the Solanaceous plants like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants in a block together and move them around from year to year to prevent an infestation of the tomato horn worm, among others that affect these crops more than other, unrelated ones.
From a healing/herbalist perspective, while each species has its own unique flavors, medicinal actions, texture, and appearance, many plants of the same family have common characteristics. The flavors of the carrot family include sweet and pungent. These flavors have healing properties attributed to them, as I will detail later.
When foraging, plant identification becomes easier when you can recognize what family a plant is in, even if you don’t know the name of that particular species. Simply flip to that family in an ID guide, and you’ll likely find it. No app or sketchy facebook group required.
That last bit about identification is important - especially with the carrot family - because while some Apiaceae species are friendly, others will absolutely rock your nervous, digestive, and cardiovascular system. The carrots, parsley, cilantro, fennel, dill, celeriac, and parsnips that we grow have been domesticated over hundreds, sometimes thousands, of years to provide the health benefits that they bring, with none of the toxic baggage. If you want to read more about the specific health benefits of these crops, you’re welcome to peruse through our farm’s Produce Guide.
On the sinister end of the carrot family, we have water hemlock (Cicuta sp). The purple spots on the stems of water hemlock reveal its identity. However, it regularly claims lives of those who mistake its roots for wild carrots. We also have wild parsnip, the sap of which can cause water blisters when applied to the skin and exposed to sunlight. And yet, the roots are still edible and delicious. Talk about a paradox!
Broadly, however, when we look at the Carrot family, what we see are herbaceous plants, as in not shrubs, trees, or vines. They usually have hollow stems, and pinnate leaves with sets of leaflets on each side of the stem and one at the end. The pattern they are best known for is the umbell flower type. This is when the flowers radiate from a single point at the end of the flower stalk, like an umbrella. You’ll see wild carrot’s white umbells covering the sides of roadways, gardens, and just about any sunny un-mowed area this time of year.
So what benefits do the edible members of the carrot family have in common? Due to their rich volatile oils, they are spicy, warming, and stimulating to the body. They can help stimulate the immune system at the onset of a fever, work as a decongestant, and expel gas from the digestive system. I suspect that’s why we often cook beans and cumin seed together!
Medicinally, plants like wild carrot and fellow carrot member Angelica have been used to bring on a delayed menses and to assist in childbirth. Consequentially, these are not recommended during pregnancy. This doesn’t apply to carrots, parsley, cilantro, and other domesticated plants.
My personal experience with carrot family plants has shown me that they are tender as they are tough. They are as full of flowers and medicine as some are full of poison. They teach us the beauty of resilience, and yet, if you treat them wrong - like when I used to transplant dill by hand as opposed to direct seeding or planting with the paper pot as we do now - they will wilt and fade away without a second thought. If they get sucessfully established, though, they are steadfast, their offerings able to last through the winter. Whether it’s storage of carrots, dill/fennel/coriander seed dried for seasoning or in pickles, tincture from wild carrot flowers, or a chimichurri sauce frozen in a silicone ice cube tray, there are many ways in which the carrot family can show up for us all year long.
While I am very careful about how I talk about it, I have also had personal experience with the aborfacient actions of Angelica and wild carrot. It’s not wise to recommend this route, as safe and accessible clinical abortions are the best option. The reasons are many, so take your pick: herbal practitioners who are experienced and willing to take on the liability of helping someone with an herbal abortion are few and far between. It is a slow, painful, uncertain process compared to other methods. It’s only possible very, VERY early in the gestation process. I will always opt to defend safe and accessible clinical abortion over herbal abortion for these reasons.
That said, it’s worth acknowledging the ancestors from all around the world who were aware of these plants and more for this very purpose. Hundreds of years before we had The Pill, midwives, herbalists, and healers knew which herbs to avoid during pregnancy, and which might release a pregnancy while preserving the life of the pregnant person. That’s what it means to have autonomy, to choose what happens in your life and with your own body. It’s comforting to know that this is not a new concept, but a tradition with roots (and umbel flowers).
In closing, I want to shout out the incredible Swallowtail butterfly, whose caterpillars rely on carrot family plants for nourishment. We see black, Giant (pictured), and yellow swallowtails on this land each year. I snapped this Giant beauty flying outside the greenhouse the other day and it always makes me smile to see them, even if their caterpillars like eating our crops. Sometimes I will take them off the crops and put them on a wild carrot in the tree line a few feet away. Can’t blame them for trying, though, and they get points for having good taste in herbs!
-Rox <3
Sources:
Botany in a Day: The patterns method of plant identification by Thomas J. Elpel
Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance by John M. Riddle
The Gift of Healing Herbs by Robin Rose Bennett