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queen anne's lace (daucus carota)

queen anne's lace

how to grow:

Queen Anne's Lace can easily be grown from seeds. It is a biennial plant but kind of self seeding. So even if you don't plant it again it will probably come again each year just not in the same spot. Queen Anne's Lace is hardy in US zones 3-10. It loves full sun and can be quite invasive if you let it spread. However if you don't want the plants anymore you can easily mow them down and they are gone.
queen anne's lace
queen anne's lace


medicinal properties:

The seeds can be used for birth control. In the book Natural Liberty the authors say that women from the Appalachian Mountains in the US have used Queen Anne's Lace for this purpose for hundreds of years. They gather and dry the seeds when they are ripe in autumn and store them for use during the year.
The authors advise us to put 1 teaspoon (3g) of (dried) Queen Anne's Lace seeds into a glass of water and drink it the day or morning after unprotected intercourse (less than 12 hours after).
The herbalist and wisewoman Rose Robin Bennett also studied Queen Anne's Lace with a group of women. In her group the women mostly took wild carrot tincture, 15 drops of flower and 15 drops of seed, every 8 hours, 3 times after each occasion of intercourse. Queen Anne's Lace as birth control was successful at least 94.375% of the time (see references below for a link to a report of the study).
In Natural Liberty on page 258 the authors explain that Queen Anne's Lace works by preventing the implantation of the egg as the terpenoids in the seeds block the progesterone receptor site in the uterine lining and so the uterus cannot make a nutritive bed for the fertilized ovum. That means, if the egg can't implant no pregnancy can occur.

In folk medicine Queen Anne's Lace is also used for treating dropsy (accumulation of fluid in the tissues resulting in swellings), gout, chronic kidney diseases and bladder problems. On the botanical.com website it is recommended to make an infusion or tea using 30ml of the herb (the whole herb, not just the seeds) with 1/2 liter of boiling water. The site also says that a poultice made of the roots can relieve the pain of cancerous ulcers and that the leaves applied with honey can soothe external sores and ulcers.

queen anne's lace
queen anne's lace


cautions and possible side effects:

queen anne's lace
queen anne's lace


references:




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