Erect biennial or perennial glabrous herbs, with pinnately decompound leaves, the segments linear or capillary, and compound umbels of yellow flowers. Involucre and involucels none. Calyx-teeth obsolete. Petals obtuse or slightly refuse at the apex. Stylopodium large, conic. Fruit linear-oblong, glabrous, terete or nearly so. Carpels half-terete, dorsally flattened, prominently ribbed; oil-tubes solitary in the intervals. Seed-face flat, or slightly concave. [Latin, diminutive of foenum, hay, from its odor.]

About 4 species, natives of the Old World, the following typical.

1. Foeniculum Foeniculum (L.) Karst. Fennel

Fig. 3142

Anethum Foeniculum L. Sp. Pl. 263.

1753. Foeniculum vulgare Hill, Brit. Herb.

413. 1756. Foeniculum Foeniculum Karst. Deutsch. Fl 837. 1880-83.

Perennial, branched, 2°-4° high. Leaves very finely dissected into capillary segments; petioles broad, clasping; umbels large, 9-25-rayed, the rays rather stout, somewhat glaucous, 1'-3' long in fruit; pedicels 1"-4" long, slender; fruit about 3" long.

In waste places', Connecticut to Pennsylvania, Virginia, Missouri and Louisiana, escaped from gardens. Bermuda. Adventive or naturalized from Europe. Dill. Finkel. Spingel. July-Sept.