ANETHUM GRAVEOLENS. GARDEN DILL. 
Class V. PENTANDRIA.— Order II. DIGYNIA. 
Natural Order, UMBELLIFERflE. — THE UMBELLIFEROUS TRIBE. 
Fig. (a) represents an unexpanded, flower, somewhat magnified, with the apexes of the petals inflected; (6) the same fully expanded ; 
(c) a stamen and anther; (d) the germen and styles; (e) a seed; • (/) the same, cut transversely. 
Dill is a hardy biennial plant, a native of the corn fields of Spain and Portugal, and appears to have been 
introduced into England about the year 1570. According to Dr. AiDslie, it is also cultivated in Hindostan, 
where the seeds, called by the Brahmins mishi, are frequently sold in the bazaars of Lower India for cara- 
way seeds. It is sometimes cultivated in our gardens as a medicinal plant, flowering in June and July. 
The root is long, tapering, and whitish, striking deep into the ground, and sending up several erect, 
round, leafy, branching, jointed stems, rising to the height of two or three feet. The whole plant, with the 
exception of the flowers, is smooth, and of a deep glaucous-green colour. The leaves, as in all the plants 
of this natural order, are placed alternately. They are large and doubly pinnated, upon broad, sheathing 
footstalks, with the leaflets linear and pointed. The flowers are produced in broad, flat, terminal umbels, 
of numerous general and partial rays, without either general or partial involucrum. There is no calyx. The 
corolla consists of five equal, obovate, concave, yellow petals, with a broad, obtuse, involuted point. The 
filaments are five, yellow, spreading, incurved, and longer than the corolla, and bearing roundish, yellow 
anthers. The germen is inferior, or placed below the insertion of the petals, ovate, covered by the nectary, 
and surmounted by two short recurved styles, with simple stigmas. The seeds are oval, flat or much com- 
pressed, with three dorsal, equidistant prominent ribs, of a brown colour, and surrounded with a dull, pale 
yellow membranous expansion. 
Culture. — It is raised from seed, of which, says Mr. Loudon, half an ounce is sufficient for a bed 
three feet by four feet. “Sow annually in February, March, or April, or occasionally in autumn, as soon as 
the seed is ripe to come up stronger in the spring, in any open compartment, either in drills six or seven 
inches apart, or broadcast thinly, and raked in evenly. The plants should remain when raised, and may be 
thinned moderately, should they rise too thick. They will shoot up in stalks, with leaves and seed umbels 
in summer and autumn, for use in proper season.” 
Qualities. — The whole plant, particularly the seeds, which are the parts directed for use in the 
British Pharmacopoeias, have a powerful aromatic odour, and a moderately warm pungent taste. These 
qualities depend on an essential oil, which is extracted by distillation with water. The seeds yield their 
active matter completely to alcohol, and partially to boiling water, by infusion. 
Medical Properties and Uses. — Like the anise and caraway, the seeds of Dill are carminative 
and stomachic; hence they are used chiefly in dyspepsia, and in the flatulence to which infants are subject. 
They were formerly supposed to promote the secretion of milk, but this opinion is long since exploded. In 
India, where the plant is not uncommon, Dill seeds are given in infusion, as a stomachic, and also a grateful 
cordial drink. 
Dose. — I n powder from gr. xv. to 3j; of the essential oil, gtt. j. to gtt. iij. 
Off. Prep. — Aqua Anethi. 
A delightful writer says, we can no more help turning to Mr. Howitt’s pages for another extract, than 
we can into the fields themselves. They are truly vernal, rich in hopes of every kind, and 
The blue sky bends over all : — 
a cheerful religion is upon them. A kind and embracing heaven looks down : a glad and grateful earth looks 
up. Those writers who omit a sense of the unknown world in their books, (provided it be a kindly one) 
and of the great spirit of beauty and beneficence which causes all the lovely things we behold, might as well 
omit the sky in their landscapes, and go looking strait-forward or downward without the power of raising 
their eyes. To be always unconscious of what is invisible round about us, or remote, is in some sense, to 
be ignorant of what we see ; for it prevents us from seeing the most delicate and suggestive part of its own 
beauty, and the innumerable images of fancy and delight which play round it. 
As to flowers, which are endless in their suggestions, and about which we could hear endless talk from 
such writers as Mr. Howitt, we have often had a fancy respecting their origin, of which he has reminded us 
by speaking of them as among the “ minor creations.” They seem as if the younger portion of angels — 
