CULINARY HERBS 6 1 



as a cultivated crop prior to our era, not only in 

 Palestine, but elsewhere in the East. Many Greek 

 and Roman authors, especially Dioscorides, Theo- 

 phrastus, Pliny and Paladius, wrote more or less 

 fully of its cultivation and uses. 



From their days to the present it seems to have 

 enjoyed general popularity. In the ninth century, 

 Charlemagne commanded that it be grown upon the 

 imperial farms ; in the thirteenth, Albertus Magnus 

 speaks highly of it ; and since then many agricultural 

 writers have devoted attention to it. But though it 

 has been cultivated for at least two thousand years 

 and is now extensively grown in Malta, Spain, 

 southern France, Russia, Germany and India, which 

 mainly supply the market, it seems not to have 

 developed any improved varieties. 



Description. — Its roots are white, spindle-shaped 

 and rather fibrous; its stems about i8 inches tall, 

 branchy, erect, slender, cylindrical; its root leaves 

 lobed somewhat like those of celery ; its stem leaves 

 more and more finely cut toward the upper part of 

 the stem, near the top of which they resemble fennel 

 leaves in their finely divided segments; its flowers 

 yellowish white, small, rather large, in loose umbels 

 consisting of many umbellets; its fruits ("seeds") 

 greenish-gray, small, ovoid or oblong in outline, 

 longitudinally furrowed and ridged on the convex 

 side, very aromatic, sweetish and pleasantly piquant. 



Cultivation. — The seeds, which should be as fresh as 

 possible, never more than two years old, should be 

 sown in permanent quarters as soon as the weather 

 becomes settled in early spring. They should be 



