CXCIV.— THE COMMON FENNEL. 
Fceniculum vulgare Miller. 
T HE Tribe Seseline<e, agreeing with the Ammine <e in having compound umbels and 
only the primary ridges on their fruits, are specially characterised by having 
their fruits short, either cylindrical or compressed antero-posteriorly, so that the 
commissure is their widest portion, and with no lateral wings, and their seeds flat on 
their ventral sides. It includes the genera Seseli , Fceniculum , Crithmum, CEnanthe , 
Aiithusa , and Angelica , and two or three others with British representatives. 
The genus Fceniculum comprises three or four species of tall, glabrous, biennial or 
perennial herbs, mostly natives of the Warmer Temperate Zone of the Old World, 
although our common species is apparently truly wild on our southern coasts and as 
far north as Norfolk and North Wales, and, perhaps, in Ireland. They have pinnately 
decompound leaves with slender, often capillary, segments, and umbels of yellow 
flowers with neither bracts nor bracteoles. The calyx-teeth are also practically 
absent : the petals are entire and roundish, with a short, broad, blunt, inflexed tip : 
there is a conical disk : the styles are short ; and the fruit oblong, sub-cylindric, 
with ten prominent bluntly keeled ridges, with an oil-vitta between each pair, and a 
bifurcate carpophore. 
Our species, F. vulgare Miller, occurs from India and North Africa to our 
shores, where, though often found in waste-places as an escape from cultivation, it 
grows in a more unequivocally wild state on rocks and sea-cliffs, especially if 
calcareous. It is a perennial and reaches three or four feet in height, its branched, 
tapering, striate, and polished stems being filled with pith. The leaves have short 
stalks and capillary segments, with a groove along their upper surfaces ; but the 
cultivated plant, with stouter, more awl-shaped segments, is probably the same 
species. The umbels have numerous rays which are glaucous, and the outer rays 
are somewhat longer, giving the whole umbel a slightly concave surface. 
The whole plant is aromatic, its properties being most concentrated in the seed, 
and there is no doubt that it shares the carminative and stomachic value of Dill, 
Anise, and Coriander. It is recommended medicinally in the Papyrus Ebers which 
belongs to about the year 1550 b.c. The name Fceniculum occurs in Pliny, who 
tells us that serpents sought the shade of this plant to strengthen their sight ; and, 
whether this was the origin of the belief or not, fennel water was long prescribed as 
an eye-wash. A rhyming Latin prescription runs 
u Fceniculum, Rosa, Verbena, Chelidonia, Ruta, 
Ex his fit aqua quae lumina reddit acuta,’* 
which has been freely translated, 
Of Fennel, Roses, Vervain, Rue and Celandine 
Is made a water good to clear the sight of eyne.” 
