CORIANDER 487 



Adulterant. The leaves of the Lesser Hemlock or Fool's Parsley 

 (^Ethusa cynapium) have been substituted. The leaflets are rhom- 

 boid-oval, deeply lobed, the segments being sometimes further lobed, 

 narrow to linear abruptly pointed or blunt. The involucre is usually 

 absent, a single bract sometimes being present. The involucels con- 

 sist of three long, pendulous, linear awl-shaped stiff bracts. The 

 fruit has broad cork-like ribs. (Ewing, Stanford, Slevenger, Jour. 

 A. Ph. A. 1919, 8, p. 385). Power and Tutin obtained a small 

 amount of alkaloids resembling those of conium (Jour. Amer. Soc., 

 1905, 27, p. 1461). 



CORIANDRUM. Coriander. The dried, ripe fruit of Coriandrum 

 sativum (Fam. Umbelliferse), an annual herb indigenous to the 

 Mediterranean and Caucasian region, naturalized in the temperate 

 parts of Europe, and cultivated there and in Africa and India. The 

 fruit is collected when full giown from cultivated plants, from which 

 it is separated by threshing, and dried. The fruits from plants 

 grown in Russia and Thuringia are preferred. The young plants, 

 particularly the leaves, as well as immature fruits, emit a disagreeable 

 odor, whence the name Coriandrum. 



Description. Mericarps usually coherent; cremocarp (Fig. 209) 

 nearly globular, 4 to 5 mm. in diameter, externally light brown or 

 rose-colored, with ten prominent, straight, longitudinal primary ribs, 

 between which are faint, somewhat undulate secondary ribs, summit 

 with 5 calyx teeth and a conical stylopodium about 0.5 mm. in length 

 internally with a slender carpophore attached to each mericarp, the 

 latter grayish-purple, concavo-convex, with two vittse on the com- 

 missural surface; seed plano-convex, with a small embryo at the 

 upper end of the reserve layer; odor and taste aromatic. 



Inner Structure. (Fig. 209.) An epidermal layer of small thick- 

 walled cells; several rows of thin-walled, more or less collapsed 

 parenchyma separated from a broad zone of strongly lignified scler- 

 enchymatous fibers, which extend as a continuous ring in the meso- 

 carp of each of the mericarps; 2 or 3 layers of large, tangentially 

 elongated, thin-walled, parenchyma cells, frequently with numerous, 

 large, lysigenous, intercellular spaces; inner epidermis of large, tab- 

 ular cells, the inner, yellowish walls being considerably thickened 

 and closely coherent to the brownish cells of the seed-coat; com- 

 missural surface with 2 large elliptical vittae, the cells of the pericarp 

 separated from the seed-coat and forming a large elliptical cavity; 

 endosperm distinctly reniform in outline and consisting of tabular 

 or polygonal, thick-walled cells, containing numerous large aleurone 

 grains, each with a rosette aggregate or prism of calcium oxalate. 



