It is indigenous to the Mediterranean region, Southern Russia and the Caucasian provinces, but is found as a cornfield weed in many other countries, and is frequently cultivated in gardens.

Dill, under the Hindustani name of Suvà or Sóyah, is largely grown in various parts of India, where the plant though of but a few months duration, grows to a height of 2 to 3 feet. On account of a slight peculiarity in the fruit, the Indian plant was regarded by Roxburgh and De Candolle as a distinct species, and called Anethum Sowa, but it possesses no botanical characters to warrant its separation from A. graveolens.

History Dill is commonly regarded to be the "Avn@ov of Dioscorides, the Anethum of Palladius and other ancient writers, as well as of the New Testament.1 In Greece the name "Avn@ov is at present applied 2 to a plant of very similar appearance, Carum Ridolfia Benth. et Hook. (Anethum segetum L.) By the later Greeks, the term 'A0ývov was also used for dill.3

4

Dill, as well as coriander, fennel, cumin, and ammi, was in frequent requisition in Britain in Anglo-Saxon times. The name is derived according to Prior 5 from the old Norse word dilla, to lull, in allusion to the reputed carminative properties of the drug. However this may be, we find the word occurring in the 10th century in the Vocabulary of Alfric, archbishop of Canterbury. The words dill and till, undoubtedly meaning this drug, were also used in Germany and Switzerland as early as A.D. 1000.

Description-The fruit which has the characters usual to Umbelliferæ, is of ovoid form, much compressed dorsally, surrounded with a broad flattened margin. The mericarps about of an inch wide, are mostly separate; they are provided with 5 equidistant, filiform ridges, of which the two lateral lose themselves in the paler, broad, thin margin. The three others are sharply keeled; the darker space between them is occupied by a vitta and two occur on the commissure. In the Indian drug, the mericarps are narrower and more convex, the ridges more distinct and pale, and the border less winged. In other respects it accords with that of Europe. The odour and taste of dill are agreeably aromatic.

Microscopic Characters-The pericarp is formed of a small number of flattened cells, which in the inner layer are of a brown colour; the ridges consist as usual of a strong fibro-vascular bundle. The vittæ in a transverse section present an elliptic outline of an inch or less in diameter. The margin of the mericarp is built up of porous, parenchymatous tissue. The albumen as in the seeds of all umbellifers, consists of somewhat thick-walled, angular cells, loaded with fatty oil, and globular grains of albuminous matters which present a dark cross when examined by polarized light. In dill, these grains are about 3 to 5 mkm. in diameter.

1 Matt. xxiii. 23,-where it has been rendered anise by the English translators from Wicklif (1380) downwards. But in other versions, the word is correctly translated.

2 Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands (1862) 40.

3 Langkavel, Botanik d. späteren Griechen, Berlin, 1866. 39.

4 Leechdoms, &c., edited by Cockayne, 1864-66,- -see especially Herbarium Apuleii, dating about A.D. 1050, in Vol. i. pp. 219. 235. 237. 281. 293.

5 Popular Names of British Plants, 1870. 6 Volume of Vocabularies, edited by Wright, 1857. 30.

Chemical Composition-Dill fruits yield on an average 2-8 per cent. (37 per cent. Pereira) of an essential oil, a large proportion of which was found by Gladstone (1864-1872) to be a hydrocarbon, C10H16, to which he gave the name Anethene. This substance has a lemon-like odour, sp. gr. 846, and boils at 173° C. It deviates a ray of polarized light strongly to the right.

1

Oil of dill also contains an oxygenated oil, C10HO, regarded by Gladstone as identical with carvol. It may be obtained as this chemist states either by fractional distillation (an imperfect method), or by taking advantage of the fact that oils of this group form crystalline bodies with hydrosulphuric acid, which can be easily purified and which yield the original oil when decomposed by an alkali. The oxidised oil from dill has the same odour as that from caraway, and likewise forms a crystalline compound when treated with sulphide of ammonium in alcohol. It has a sp. gr. of 956, and rotates the polarized ray to the right. Nothing is known of the other constituents of dill fruits.

Uses The distilled water of dill is stomachic and carminative, and frequently prescribed as a vehicle for more active medicines. The seeds are much used for culinary and medicinal purposes by the people of India, but are little employed in Continental Europe.

FRUCTUS CORIANDRI.

Semen Coriandri; Coriander Fruits, Coriander Seeds, Corianders; F. Fruits de Coriandre; G. Koriander.

Botanical Origin-Coriandrum sativum L., a small, glabrous, annual plant, apparently indigenous to the Mediterranean and Caucasian regions, but now found as a cornfield weed throughout the temperate parts of Europe and Asia. It is cultivated in many countries, and has thus found its way even to Paraguay. In England the cultivation of coriander. has long been carried on, but only to a very limited extent.

History The plant owes its names Κόριον, Κορίαννον, and ΚοριάνSpov to the offensive odour it exhales when handled, and which reminds one of bugs,-in Greek Kópis. This character caused it to be regarded in the middle ages as having poisonous properties.2 The ripe fruits which are entirely free from the foetid smell of the growing plant, were used as a spice by the Jews and the Romans, and in medicine from a very early period. Cato, who wrote on agriculture in the 3rd century B.C., notices the cultivation of coriander. Pliny states that the best is that of Egypt.

Coriander, or as sometimes called Coliander, was well known in Britain prior to the Norman Conquest, and often employed in ancient English medicine and cookery.

Cultivation-Coriander, called by the farmers Col, is cultivated in the eastern counties of England, especially in Essex. It is sometimes sown with caraway, and being an annual is gathered and harvested the first year, the caraway remaining in the ground. The seedling plants

Journ. of Chemical Society, x. (1872) 9; Pharm. Journ. March 1872. 746.

P. de Abbano, Tract. de Venenis, 1473, capp. 25. 46.

are hoed so as to leave those that are to remain, in rows 10 to 12 inches apart. The plant is cut with sickles, and when dry the seed is thrashed out on a cloth in the centre of the field. On the best land, 15 cwt. per acre is reckoned an average crop.1

Description-The fruit of coriander consists of a pair of hemispherical mericarps, firmly joined so as to form an almost regular globe, measuring on an average about of an inch in diameter, crowned by the stylopodium and calycinal teeth, and sometimes by the slender diverging styles. The pericarp bears on each half, 4 perfectly straight sharpish ridges, regarded as secondary (juga secundaria); two other ridges, often of darker colour, belonging to the mericarps in common, the separation of which takes place in a rather sinuous line. The shallow depression between each pair of these straight ridges, is occupied by a zigzag raised line (jugum primarium), of which there are therefore 5 in each mericarp. It will thus be seen that each mericarp has 5 (zigzag) so-called primary ridges, and 4 (keeled and more prominent) secondary, besides the lateral ridges which mark the suture or line of separation. There are no vittæ on the outer surface of the pericarp. Of the 5 teeth of the calyx, 2 often grow into long, pointed, persistent lobes: they proceed from the outer flowers of the umbel.

Though the two mericarps are closely united, they adhere only by the thin pericarp, enclosing when ripe a lenticular cavity. On each side of this cavity, the skin of the fruit separates from that of the seed, displaying the two brown vittæ of each mericarp. In transverse section, the albumen appears crescent-shaped, the concave side being towards the cavity. The carpophore stands in the middle of the latter as a column, connected with the pericarp only at top and bottom.

Corianders are smooth and rather hard, in colour buff or light brown. They have a very mild aromatic taste, and when crushed a peculiar fragrant smell. When unripe, their odour, like that of the fresh plant, is offensive. The nature of the chemical change that occasions this alteration in odour has not been made out.

The Indian corianders shipped from Bombay are of large size and of elongated form.

Microscopic Structure-The structural peculiarities of coriander fruit chiefly refer to the pericarp. Its middle layer is made up of thickwalled ligneous prosenchyme, traversed by a few fibro-vascular bundles which in the zigzag ridges vary exceedingly in position.

Chemical Composition-The essential oil of coriander has a composition indicated by the formula C10H180, and is therefore isomeric with borneol. If the elements of water are abstracted by phosphoric anhydride, it is converted according to Kawalier (1852) into an oil of offensive odour, C10H16.

The fruits yield of volatile oil about per cent.; as the vittæ are well protected by the woody pericarp, corianders should be bruised before being submitted to distillation. Trommsdorff found the fruits to afford 13 per cent. of fixed oil.

The fresh herb distilled in July when the fruits were far from ripe, yielded to one of us (F.) from 0.57 to 11 per mille of an essential oil possessing in a high degree the disagreeable odour already alluded to. 1 R. Baker, in Morton's Cyclopedia of Agriculture, i. (1855) 545.

This oil was found to deviate the ray of polarized light 1.1° to the right when examined in a column 50 mm. long. The oil distilled by us from ripe commercial fruit deviated 51° to the right.

Production and Commerce-Coriander is cultivated in various parts of Continental Europe, and as already stated, to a small extent in England. It is also produced in Northern Africa and in India. In 1872-73, the export of coriander from the province of Sind1 was 948 cwt.; from Bombay 2 in the same year 619 cwt. From Calcutta 3 there were shipped in 1870-71, 16,347 cwt.

3

Uses-Coriander fruits are reputed stimulant and carminative, yet are but little employed in medicine. They are however used in veterinary practice, and by the distillers of gin, also in some countries in cookery.

FRUCTUS CUMINI.

4

Fructus vel Semen Cymini; Cumin or Cummin Fruits, Cummin Seeds F. Graines de Cumin; G. Mutterkümmel, Kreuzkümmel, Langer oder Römischer Kümmel, Mohrenkümmel.

Botanical Origin-Cuminum Cyminum L., a small annual plant, indigenous to the upper regions of the Nile, but carried at an early period by cultivation to Arabia, India and China, as well as to the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The fruits of the plant ripen as far north as Southern Norway; but in Europe, Sicily and Malta alone produce them in quantity.

History-Cumin was well known to the ancients; it is alluded to by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah,5 and is mentioned in the gospel of Matthew as one of the minor titheable productions of the Holy Land. Under the name Kúpavov, it is commended for its agreeable taste by Dioscorides, in whose day it was produced on the coasts of Asia Minor and Southern Italy. It is named as Cuminum by Horace and Persius. During the middle ages, cumin was one of the spices in most common Thus in A.D. 716, an annual provision of 150 lb. of cumin for the monastery of Corbie in Normandy, was not thought too large a supply.7 It was in frequent use in England, its average price between 1264 and 1400, being a little over 2d. per b.8 Cumin is enumerated in the Liber albus of the city of London, compiled in 1419, among the merchandize on which the king levied the impost called scavage; and is mentioned 10 in 1453 as one of the articles of which the Grocers' Company had the weighing and oversight.

use.

9

Description-The fruit, the colour of which is brown, has the usual

1 Statement of the Trade and Navigation of Sind for the year 1872-73, Karachi, 1873. 36.

Ditto for Bombay, 1872-73. ii. 90.

3 Annual Volume of Trade, &c. for the Bengal Presidency, 1870–71. 121.

4 Comyne in Wicklif's Bible (1380), Commen in Tyndale's (1534), Commyn in Cranmer's (1539), Cummine in the Authorized Version (1611), Cumin in Gerarde's Herbal (1636) and Paris's Pharmacologia (1822),

Cummin, Ray (1693) and in modern tradelists and price-currents.

5 Ch. xxviii. 25-27.

6 Ch. xxiii. 23.

7 Pardessus, Diplomata, etc., Paris, 1849. ii. 309.

8 Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England, 1866. i. 631, ii. 543-547.

9 Munimenta Gildhalla Londoniensis, edited by Riley, i. (1859) 224.

10 Herbert, Hist. of the Great Livery Companies of London, 1834. 114.

structure of the order; it is of an elongated ovoid form, tapering towards each end, and somewhat laterally compressed. The mericarps which do not readily separate from the carpophore, are about of an inch in length and of an inch in greatest breadth. Each has 5 primary ridges which are filiform, and scabrous or muriculate, and 4 secondary covered with rough hairs. Between the primary ridges is a single elongated vitta, and 2 vittæ occur on the commissural surface. A transverse section of the seed shows a reniform outline. There is a form of C. Cyminum in cultivation, the fruit of which is perfectly glabrous.

Cumin has a strong aromatic taste and smell, analogous to but far less agreeable than that of caraway.

Microscopic Structure-The hairs are rather brittle, sometimes mm. in length, formed of cells springing from the epidermis. The larger consist of groups of cells, vertically or laterally combined, and enclosed by a common envelope; the smaller of but a single cell ending in a rounded point. The whole pericarp is rich in tannic matter, striking with salts of iron a dark greenish colour.

The tissue of the seed is loaded with colourless drops of a fatty oil; the vittæ with a yellowish-brown essential oil. But the most striking contents of the parenchyme of the albumen consist of transparent, colourless, spherical grains, 7 to 5 mkm. in diameter, several of which are enclosed in each cell. Under a high magnifying power, they show a central cavity with a series of concentric layers around it, frequently traversed by radial clefts. Examined in polarized light, these grains display exactly the same cross as is seen in granules of starch, although their behaviour with chemical tests at once proves that they are by no means that substance; in fact iodine does not render them blue, but intensely brown. Grains of the same character, assuming sometimes a crystalloid form, occur in most umbelliferous fruits, and in many seeds of other orders. All these bodies are composed of albuminous and fatty matters; the more crystalloid form as met with in the seeds of Ricinus and in the fruit of parsley, is the body called by Hartig Aleuron.

Chemical Composition-Cumin fruits yielded to Bley (1829) 7·7 per cent. of fat oil, 13 per cent. of resin (?), 8 of mucilage and gum, 15·5 of albuminous matter, and a large amount of malates. Their peculiar, strong, aromatic smell and taste, depend on the essential oil of which they afford about 3 per cent. Trapp has shown that the fruits of Cicuta virosa L. contain the same oil to the extent of about 1 per cent. Oil of cumin is a mixture of Cymol or Cymene, C10H14, having sp. gr. 0.867 and boiling point 177° C.; and Cuminol or Cuminaldehyde, C10H120, of sp. gr. 0-972, boiling point 236° C., the proportion of the latter in the crude oil being about 56 per cent. It also contains the hydrocarbon C10H16, according to Warren (1865), and Beilstein and Kupffer (1873).

Cuminol possesses the smell and taste of cumin, while the odour of cymol more resembles that of lemons. Oil of cumin deviates a ray of polarized light 10.2° to the right: the optical power of each of its constituents is nearly the same, that of cuminol being the less strong. Cymol may also be obtained by submitting coal-tar to dry distillation, or by distilling camphor with anhydrous phosphoric acid or dry chloride

1 Ann. der Chem. u. Pharm. cviii. (1858) 386.