Wild Carrot

Daucus carota.

Natural Order—Umbelliferae.

This common wild plant is often found growing in pasture fields, from 1 to 2 feet high. The leaflets are pinnatifid, the segments acute; the central flower a purple umbel; a fruit concave; flowers white. The plant is biennial, flowering in July or August.

Medicinal Properties: Diuretic, Stimulant.

It is most useful in dropsy, chronic kidney diseases, gravel, and stranguary of the bladder. It particularly influences the urinary organs. Given in strong decoction, it is very useful in gravel and in the passage of stone from the bladder and kidneys. For this purpose, use as follows:—Boil two ounces of the herb in two pints of water for 30 minutes; when cool, strain, and take a teacupful three or four times daily, or oftener, if required.

The seeds are carminative, stimulant, and somewhat diuretic, and are very useful in flatulency, windy colic, hiccough, obstructed menses, dysentery, chronic coughs, &c. The dose of the seeds, bruised, is from one-third to one teaspoonful, repeated as necessary.

Health from British Wild Herbs was written by Richard Lawrence Hool, N.A.M.H., in 1918.