Anise
Pimpinella anisum Anise is native to the eastern Mediterranean areas as well as western Asia and North Africa, where it still grows wild as a wayside weed. Because it is so shortlived, it often appears in spring and again in late summer, drawing bees and butterflies to it in droves with its sweet liquorice fragrance. Remarkably, anise has been cultivated in Egypt for over 4 000 years. Pharaonic texts show that even then it was used as a digestive herb, diuretic and to help ease toothache. The Greeks used it too; Dioscorides wrote in the first century that aniseed ‘warms, dries and dissolves, facilitates breathing, relieves pain, provokes urine and eases thirst’. Modern medical science has proved that these ancient uses of this marvellous herb were indeed correct. Cultivation Anise is an attractive, shortlived annual growing up to 50 cm in height with pretty, feathery flowers typical of the Umbelliferae, often mistakenly called lace flowers. It is a rewarding plant to grow ...