Daucus carota L.

Flowering from May to July.

Daucus carota var. carota is close relative of Daucus carota var. sativa, but differs from the latter in taproot slender, branched, woody, not fleshy, usually brown (vs. thickened, elongate terete or clavate, fleshy, reddish, reddish-yellow, or yellwo).

Daucus carota is occurring in Anhui, Guizhou, Hubei, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Zhejiang of China, N Africa, SW Asia, Europe; cultivated and adventive worldwide in temperate regions.

The complete carrot plastid genome is 155,911 bp in length, with 115 unique genes and 21 duplicated genes within the IR. Phylogenetic analysis of nucleotide sequences for 61 protein-coding genes using both maximum parsimony (MP) and maximum likelihood (ML) were performed for 29 angiosperms. Phylogenies from both methods provide strong support for the monophyly of several major angiosperm clades, including monocots, eudicots, rosids, asterids, eurosids II, euasterids I, and euasterids II. Both MP and ML trees provide very strong support (100% bootstrap) for the sister relationship of Daucus with Panax in the euasterid II clade (Ruhlman et al., 2006).

Plants to 120 cm. Leaves oblong, 2–3-pinnate/pinnatisect; ultimate segments linear to lanceolate, 2-15 mm long, 0.5-4 mm wide, glabrous to hispid especially on the veins and margins, acute, mucronate. Peduncles 10-55 cm, retrorsely hispid; bracts foliaceous, pinnate, rarely entire, lobes linear, 3–30 mm, margin scarious; rays 2-7.5 cm, unequal; bracteoles 5-7, linear, entire or 2-3-lobed, more or less scarious and ciliate, equaling or exceeding flowers. Petals white, sometimes yellow or pinkish. Fruit 3-4 mm long, ca. 2 mm wide.

The basic chromosomal number of Daucus carota is 2n = 18 (Das and mallick, 1985; Subramanian, 1986; Krishnappa and Basappa, 1988; Dobeš et al., 1997).

Growing in mountains slopes, ruderal areas, also widely cultivated; 2000-3000 m.

The fruit of Daucus carota were used for medicine (“hu luo bo”) and oil.