Royalty... my exclusive report

It's a girl!  Her name is Queen Anne.

Isn't she lovely?
Her full name is Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota).
Royals do tend to have long names.
This queen does not live in a castle though.  She prefers the common life along roadsides and similar dry poor soils.

 She is not a native to this land, but she has done very well here.  She has even produced our vegetable plant, the carrot.  One of her other names is Wild Carrot.  She comes from the Parsley family.
Here are some carrot plants...

You can see how similar their leaves are in the next photo.

Queen Anne's Lace leaf on the right,  Carrot on the left

There are several legends about Queen Anne's Lace.  They say the flower was named after Queen Anne who was excellent at making lace, but pricked her finger with the needle and that is why some of the flowers have a single dark floret in the middle (it's a drop of her blood).  Here's a link to a website that tells in more detail some of the legends of Queen Anne's Lace.

You can see the 'drop of blood' in the center of this one.  It's also a special pinkish flower.  Out of many, many Queen Anne's Lace flowers, there will be just a few that are pink.

When I was a young girl, my first flower garden was for a 4-H club project.  One of the things 4-H projects teach you is to keep good records.  

  
I remember going with my mom to a greenhouse to pick out plants for my garden.  The greenhouse owner was all excited about some plants he had that were supposed to be Blue Queen Anne's Lace.  We bought some (5 according to my records!) and I planted them in my garden.  Here I am watering them in!

I did not usually dress like that to work in my garden... I was probably ready to go to church.  I think this must have been a posed photo for my 4-H book!

Here's a photo of my garden later that summer.  

Too bad we can't see the Blue Queen Anne's Lace better (they are the rather thin-looking plants in the back row).  Apparently they didn't catch on, as I've never seen them for sale again!

Queen Anne can artificially color her 'hair' though.  

 A little food coloring and a few hours is all it takes!
But I think she is gorgeous just the way God made her.

Even when her blossums start to dry and curl into a birds nest shape, she is still pretty.

Congratulations to the other Royal family in the news today; to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on the birth of their first child, who-- by the way, is a boy!  Just in case you haven't heard!