328 UMBELLIFER^. 



other countries, and is frequently cultivated in gardens. It succeeds in 

 Norway as far north as Throndhjem. 



Dili, under the Hindustani name of Suva or Soyah, is largely grown 

 in various ports 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 Soiva, but 

 it possesses no botanical characters to warrant its separation from A. 

 graveolens. 



History — Dill is commonly regarded to be the "AvrjOov of Diosco- 

 rides, the Anethum of Palladius and other ancient writers, as well as of 

 the New Testament.^ In Greece the name "AvrjOov 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 

 'AvtjOov was also used for dill.^ 



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 ^ 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, un- 

 doubtedly meaning this drug, were also used in Germany and Switzer- 

 land as early as A.D. 1000. 



Description — The fruit, which has the characters usual to Umbel- 

 lifercB, is of ovoid form, much compressed dorsally, surrounded with a 

 broad flattened margin. The mericarps about A 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 darkest 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 vittse in a transverse section present an elliptic outline liu 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 thick-walled, angular cells, loaded with fatty 

 oil, and globular grains of albuminous matters which present a dark 

 c^'oss when examined by polarized light. 



Chemical Composition — DiU fmit yields from 3 to 4 per cent, of 



^ Matt, xxiii. 23, — where it has been ren- * Leechdoms, &c. , edited by Cockayne, 



dered oTiise by the English translators from 1864-66, — see especially Herbarium Apu- 



Wicklif (1380) downwards. But in other leii, dating about a.d. 1050, in vol. i. pp. 



versions, the word is correctly translated. 219. 235. 237. 281. 293. 



2 Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Grkchenlands '^ Popular Names of Brill-ih Plants, ISIO. 



(1862) 40. « Volume, of Vocabularies, edited by 



^ lja.n^&\Q\,Botanikd.spaterenQriechen, Wright, 1857. 30. 

 Berlin, 1866. 39. 



