CUMINUM CYMINUM. | ~ ORD. VI. Unmbellate. 143 
THE root is annual, simple, fibrous: the stalk is round, slender, 
“often procumbent, branched, and rises about six or eight inches in 
height: ‘the leaves are numerous, narrow, linear, pointed, grass-like : 
the flowers are purple, and produced in numerous small umbels, 
which are usually composed of four radii, each supporting a partial 
_umbel of a like number: the general and partial involucra consist of 
four narrow pointed segments: all the florets are fertile: the corolla 
is composed of five petals, which are unequal, bent inwards, and 
notched at the apex: the filaments are five, and furnished with 
simple anthere : the germen is large, ovate, and placed below the 
corolla: the two styles are minute, and terminated by simple stig-’ 
mata: the fruit is egg-shaped, or oblong, striated : the seeds are 
two, oblong, flat on one side, convex and striated on the other. 
This phot, which is the only species of Cuminum yet discovered, 
is a native of Egypt and Ethiopia, and is cultivated in the islands of 
Sicily and Malta, from whence we are supplied with the seeds.* 
fs Cumin seeds have a bitterish warm taste, accompanied with an 
aromatic flavour, but not agreeable. They give out great part of 
their smell by infusion ‘in water, but very little of their taste: in 
distillation with water, a pungent oil arises, of a strong ungrateful 
flavour like that of the seeds: the decoction, inspissated, leaves a 
weakly roughish bitterish extract. Rectified spirit takes up the 
whole virtues of the = by infusion, and leaves them nearly 
uninjured in evaporation.’” 
Cummin has been thought to be the Kyu of Wiecande: The 
seeds, which rank as one of the four greater hot seeds, contain a 
large proportion of essential oil, and are therefore supposed to possess 
a carminative and stomachic power, equal, if not superior to most 
of those of the umbelliferous class... They are generally preferred 
to the other seeds for external use in discussing indolent tumours, 
and give name both to a plaster and cataplasm in ag Pharmaco- 
peias. . 
@ It was cultivated in England in 1594 by Sir Hugh Plat. See Plat’s Garden of 
Eden. part. tt. p. 134. Hort. Kew 
* Lewis. Mat. Med. p. 268. © Cullen. M, M. vol. it. p. 159. 
