The Queen & the Chiggers
Long before country singer Brad Paisley made checking for ticks an act of seduction, many of us grew up with a much more imminent threat to our outdoor adventures—a threat that was far less obvious and identifiable until it was too late.
Chiggers.
There is nothing alluring about checking a significant other for chigger bites. While ticks are certainly more dangerous, carrying lime disease and endangering our poor puppies, chiggers are rampant, annoying, and virtually impossible to spot. All the more reason that our mothers warned us of chigger weed. Some may know it better as Queen Anne’s Lace, the far more appealing nomenclature. Still others might identify it as wild carrot, making it sound almost useful.
Like a delicate summer snowfall of wistful white across green fields, pastures, and hillsides, chigger weed almost softens the appearance of the ground beneath. Individually studied, the multiple blooms are simple in structure and combine into an umbrella cushion for the crowning feature: the single dark purple flower dotting its center. This regal display of delicacy and symbolic coloring gives the wildflower its most common name, Queen Anne’s Lace. The most common namesake origin story is that the white flower represents Anne’s custom of tatting or knotting lace (a practice that began 2,000 years ago), and the dark reddish purple center represents a single drop of royal blood staining the lace when she pricked her finger on a tatting needle. There is little doubt that the flower evokes such imagery. William Carlos William harkens the purity of the flower in his poem entitled “Queen Anne’s Lace”:
“Her body is not so white as
anemony petals nor so smooth—nor
so remote a thing. It is a field
of the wild carrot taking
the field by force; the grass
does not raise above it.
Here is no question of whiteness,
white as can be, with a purple mole
at the center of each flower.”
Each flower is a hand’s span
of her whiteness. Wherever
his hand has lain there is
a tiny purple blemish. Each part
is a blossom under his touch
to which the fibres of her being
stem one by one, each to its end,
until the whole field is a
white desire, empty, a single stem,
a cluster, flower by flower,
a pious wish to whiteness gone over—
or nothing.
Though some people dispute which Queen Anne the flower is named for, I rather prefer the Queen Anne nicknamed “Brandy Nan” for her fondness of the drink. Daughter of James II, Queen Anne eventually died with no children surviving (after several failed pregnancies and one child dying young) to take her place on the throne. Interestingly enough, some people use the fruits of the flower as a form of homeopathic contraception (please do not try this at home). It seems this use has garnered mixed results, though it is likely that a plant with such capacity to engender infertility, while temporary, would be aptly named for a woman who experienced such a well-known struggle to experience a healthy pregnancy.
And, in consideration of her lush lifestyle, Anne would surely be pleased to know that Tama Wong, a writer for Food52.com, has shared the recipe for Queen Anne’s Lace Cognac Apéritif (please do try this at home and then invite me over). Queen Anne’s Lace can be used as an edible seasoning, reflecting its carrot roots (literal and figurative). While the fruits are easily harvested, one must dig the root early to avoid woodiness, and still, one must not expect the same sweetness as the carrots we are most accustomed to. Like Anne, the wild carrot grows disagreeable early in life.
But as a child, I knew none of this. All I knew was to stay out of the chigger weed, no matter how beautiful it was. If I picked a stem or two for an impromptu bouquet, I was quickly turned away at the door until I had inspected every petal for those black bugs. I became so paranoid that I eventually mistook every flower as infested because of its dark center. Having never inspected them closely enough, I assumed that the purplish petal was, in fact, a dreaded chigger.
Like most cautionary tales of childhood in the great outdoors, one might suspect that warnings when approaching Queen Anne’s Lace did not derive merely from the concern of itchy bumps. A much more credible concern for those who harvest the weed, especially those who wish to eat its young carrot root or gather its fruits for either medicinal or culinary purposes, is that the appearance of Queen Anne’s Lace is remarkably similar to that of poisonous hemlock. Yes, the “I killed Socrates” hemlock. In this fashion, Queen Anne’s Lace is similar to many of nature’s temptations. It is beautiful, easily accessible, requires no skill to cultivate, but if one does not take the time to appreciate its intricacies, one might easily mistake death for dinner.
This is, after all, what our parents want us to remember as we run through summer fields and scramble up hillsides. Pay attention. Take the time to pay attention to the smallest of details. Some are secrets of beauty, like the purple petal masquerading as a chigger. Others are secrets of danger, like chiggers masquerading as flowers or even worse: poison masquerading as “white desire.”
About the author: Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle is an award-winning author and member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.