Here's a problem with a species name that is making our database less user-friendly.

Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota)

We have a parent plant entry for Daucus carota. Every photo is of Queen Anne's Lace, but anyone searching for Queen Anne's Lace will not find this entry because the common name is "Carrot." We can't add "Queen Anne's Lace" as a common name because the parent plant entry will apply that common name to all of the carrot cultivars.

In the past, carrots and wild carrots were differentiated by means of additional names for subspecies, and Wikipedia still refers to the cultivated vegetable as Daucus carota subsp. sativus. This name is still accepted by GRIN and still exists in our database, but ITIS says it's now merely a synonym of D. carota. Worse yet, both GRIN and ITIS say this information was updated in 2011. Which one should we believe?

Furthermore, the information in the parent plant entry seems to refer only to Queen Anne's Lace. I'm no carrot expert, but I don't think all the cultivars are at least 3 feet tall with showy flowers.

I'll go along with whatever you all decide on this and will make the necessary changes.

I just want to make sure we have a parent plant for carrots.

Thanks, Dave. I also want to hear from Kent and Evan because they're so good at unraveling this kind of knotty dilemma.

This was interesting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D...
http://www.woodrow.org/teacher...

Hi Zuzu,
COL dynamic points to World Umbellifer Database; both accepted names with Latest taxonomic scrutiny: Watson M., Oct-2011. This agrees with your Grin reference and seems to be even a bit more comprehensive.

http://www.catalogueoflife.org...
http://www.catalogueoflife.org...

Thanks for those links, Lynn. The Wikipedia page was my basis for the cultivars being called D. carota subsp. sativus. I wish the Woodrow Wilson Foundation page hadn't run the genus and species names together, as if "Daucuscarota" is a distinct and separate genus.

Thanks, Evan. Would you agree then that all of the cultivars should be listed as Daucus carota subsp. sativus along with the parent plant entry, with some tweaking to include information more applicable to culitivated carrots, and that Daucus carota should not be a parent plant entry and should have the common name "Queen Anne's Lace" rather than "Carrot"?

Sounds perfect to me Zuzu.

Shall we wait for Kent's blessing?

Incidentally, to give credit where credit's due, I have to report that Chelle was the one that alerted me to this problem.

I don't have anything to offer on the taxonomy of carrots except that, if you can justify separating wild carrots from the multitude of garden cultivars, it would seem like a good idea to do so.

Thanks, Kent. Now we're good to go.

Dave, this will require some of your magic. All of the photos, comments, and general plant information on this page (Daucus carota) apply to Queen Anne's Lace, so all that needs to be done is to strip the page of its parent plant status and replace "Carrot" with "Queen Anne's Lace" as the common name:

Queen Anne's Lace (Daucus carota)

The genus and species designation for all of the 200+ Daucus cultivars now listed as Daucus carota should be changed to Daucus carota subsp. sativus, and this entry should be the parent plant for carrots:

Carrots (Daucus carota var. sativus)

All of my carrots come from the supermarket, so I'd rather leave the plant information content of the parent entry to someone else.

Also, all of the information that was previousy added from the parent plant entry to the cultivar entries probably should be removed. I suspect it applies only to Queen Anne's Lace, and not to carrots.

Your proposals like this are always so clear, concise and complete. Thank you for that!!

I have finished this work and it should be all set now!

Thanks, everyone!

This was so interesting to watch. Thank you all.

It looks great, Dave. Thanks.

And thank you.