XII 
COmANDER, ETC. 
387 
oval in outline, rounded at both ends and flat, three 
dorsal ribs prominent, two side ones developed into a 
flat, thin, paler-coloured wing. 
The plant occurs as a weed in cereal crops in 
southern Europe, and south to Egypt and Abyssinia. 
It was cultivated by the Greeks and Romans, and 
introduced into England in 1570. The Indian form 
has rather longer and narrower fruits. 
It is cultivated in India in the same way as 
coriander, and the fruit when ripe is treated in the same 
method. 
USE 
Dill seed, as it is often called, Anethi fructus of the 
chemists, is used in curry powder, and also as a sub- 
stitute for caraway seed in seed cakes. In medicine it 
has long been known as a cure for flatulence in infants, 
under the form of dill-water. 
As a spice, it is rarely used in Europe. The oil is 
obtained by crushing and distilling with water, as in 
coriander. It is used in medicine chiefly in the manu- 
facture of dill-water. Its price in Singapore is from 
15 to 20 cents per lb. 
CUMIN 
Cumin is the fruit of a herbaceous annual known as 
Cuminum cyminum, L., a native of the Mediterranean 
region. Upper Egypt, and Arabia. It is largely culti- 
vated in India, as the coriander and dill, for curry 
powder. It is a herb about 1 ft. tall, with a much 
branched stem, strongly striate or angular, with nearly 
sessile upper leaves, the lower ones with longer leaf- 
stalks, the blade divided into long, slender, setaceous, 
linear segments, pale green. The flowers are rose- 
coloured or white, in stalked umbels of few rays. The 
fruit, about J in. long, oval, oblong, very little com- 
pressed, greyish brown, and the ridges finely hispid with 
papillose hairs. In some forms the hairs are quite 
absent. 
