The winter remains of Queen Anne’s lace, Daucus carota, add dark structure to the meadow at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary, the once-delicate umbels dried and contracted into shapes that, in the dim January twilight, look something like espresso martinis on too-long stems. Across most of the U.S., the Old World perennial is an overindulging nuisance that drinks up all the resources meant for smaller native species; here on the Outer Cape, though, it has shown temperance. The bigger danger occurs when yanking it out of your garden bed — a spill of its sap on the skin can cause a painful phytophotodermatitis, to which this author can attest.
