332 UMBELLIFER^. 



of which the Grocers' Company had the weighing and oversight, and 

 was classed in 1484 in the same way in the German warehouse in 

 Venice/ 



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

 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 y^ 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 vittse 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, far less agreeable than 

 that of caraway. 



Microscopic Structure — The hairs are rather brittle, sometimes 

 I mm. in length, formed of cells springing from the epidermis. The 

 larger consists 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 vittse 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 

 Aleii7vn. 



Chemical Composition — Cumin fruits yielded to Bley (1829) 7 



per cent, of fat oil, 13 per cent, of resin (?), 8 of mucilage and gum, 15 



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 as much as 4 per cent. It contains about 56 per cent, of 



r CFTO 

 Cuminol (or CuminaZdehyde), C^H^ < q3CT7 , a liquid of sp. gr. 0972, 



boiling point 237° C. It has also been met with, in 1858, by Trapp in 

 the oil of Cicuta virosa. By boiling cuminol with potash in alcoholic 



solution, cuminalcohol, C^H* -J ^3x^7 , as well as the potassium salt of 



cuminic acid, C^H* -I ^^ijj > ^^^ formed. 



^ Thomas, Foniego dei Todeschi in Venezia, 1874. 252. 



