_Semen Anethi_; _Dill Fruits_, _Dill Seeds_; F. _Fruits d’Aneth_; G.
_Dillfrüchte_.
=Botanical Origin=—_Anethum graveolens_ L., (_Peucedanum[1245]
graveolens_ Hiern) an erect, glaucous annual plant, with finely
striated stems, usually to 1 to 1½ feet high, pinnate leaves with
setaceous linear segments, and yellow flowers.
[1241] _Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the Presidency of
Bombay_, 1871-72, and 1872-73.
[1242] As stated by Pereira, _Mat. Medica_, ii. part 2 (1857) p. 186.
See also Hanbury, _Science Papers_, 1876. 376.
[1243] _Economic Products of the Punjab_, i. (1868) 402.
[1244] Further particulars regarding Opopanax and Sagapenum, may be
found in the theses of Przeciszewski (1861) and Vigier (1869), noticed
in our article on Ammoniacum, and Dragendorff’s _Jahresbericht_, 1875.
119. 120.
[1245] Bentham and Hooker (_Gen. Plant._ 919) suppress the genus
_Anethum_, uniting its one solitary species with _Peucedanum_.
It is indigenous to the Mediterranean region, Southern Russia and the
Caucasian provinces, but is found as a cornfield weed in many other
countries, and is frequently cultivated in gardens. It succeeds in
Norway as far north as Throndhjem.
Dill, under the Hindustani name of _Suvā_ or _Sōyah_, is largely grown
in various ports of India, where the plant though of but a few months’
duration, grows to a height of 2 to 3 feet. On account of a slight
peculiarity in the fruit, the Indian plant was regarded by Roxburgh and
De Candolle as a distinct species, and called _Anethum Sowa_, but it
possesses no botanical characters to warrant its separation from _A.
graveolens_.
=History=—Dill is commonly regarded to be the Ἄνηθον of Dioscorides,
the _Anethum_ of Palladius and other ancient writers, as well as of
the New Testament.[1246] In Greece the name Ἄνηθον is at present
applied[1247] to a plant of very similar appearance, _Carum Ridolfia_
Benth. et Hook (_Anethum segetum_ L.). By the later Greeks, the term
Ἄνηθον was also used for dill.[1248]
Dill, as well as coriander, fennel, cumin, and ammi, was in frequent
requisition in Britain in Anglo-Saxon times.[1249] The name is derived
according to Prior[1250] from the old Norse word _dilla_, to _lull_,
in allusion to the reputed carminative properties of the drug. However
this may be, we find the word occurring in the 10th century in the
Vocabulary of Alfric, archbishop of Canterbury.[1251] The words _dill_
and _till_, undoubtedly meaning this drug, were also used in Germany
and Switzerland as early as A.D. 1000.
=Description=—The fruit, which has the characters usual to
_Umbelliferæ_, is of ovoid form, much compressed dorsally, surrounded
with a broad flattened margin. The mericarps about ⅒ of an inch wide,
are mostly separate; they are provided with 5 equidistant, filiform
ridges, of which the two lateral lose themselves in the paler, broad,
thin margin. The three others are sharply keeled; the darkest space
between them is occupied by a vitta and two occur on the commissure.
In the Indian drug, the mericarps are narrower and more convex, the
ridges more distinct and pale, and the border less winged. In other
respects it accords with that of Europe. The odour and taste of dill
are agreeably aromatic.
=Microscopic Characters=—The pericarp is formed of a small number of
flattened cells, which in the inner layer are of a brown colour; the
ridges consist as usual of a strong fibro-vascular bundle. The vittæ
in a transverse section present an elliptic outline ¹/₁₄₀ of an inch
or less in diameter. The margin of the mericarp is built up of porous,
parenchymatous tissue. The albumen as in the seeds of all umbellifers,
consists of thick-walled, angular cells, loaded with fatty oil, and
globular grains of albuminous matters which present a dark cross when
examined by polarized light.
[1246] Matt. xxiii. 23,—where it has been rendered _anise_ by the
English translators from Wicklif (1380) downwards. But in other
versions, the word is correctly translated.
[1247] Heldreich, _Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands_ (1862) 40.
[1248] Langkavel, _Botanik d. späteren Griechen_, Berlin, 1866. 39.
[1249] _Leechdoms_, &c., edited by Cockayne, 1864-66,—see especially
_Herbarium Apuleii_, dating about A.D. 1050, in vol. i. pp. 219. 235.
237. 281. 293.
[1250] _Popular Names of British Plants_, 1870.
[1251] _Volume of Vocabularies_, edited by Wright, 1857. 30.
=Chemical Composition=—Dill fruit yields from 3 to 4 per cent. of an
essential oil, the largest proportion of which was found by Gladstone
(1864-1872) to be a hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆, to which he gave the name
_Anethene_. This substance has a lemon-like odour, sp. gr. ·846, and
boils at 172° C. It deviates a ray of polarized light strongly to the
right. Nietzki (1874) ascertained that there is, moreover, present
another hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆, in a very small proportion, which boils
at 155-160°. A third constituent of oil of dill is in all probability
identical with carvol (see page 307); we prepared from the former
immediately the crystals (C₁₀H₁₄O)₂SH₂.
=Uses=—The distilled water of dill is stomachic and carminative, and
frequently prescribed as a vehicle for more active medicines. The seeds
are much used for culinary and medicinal purposes by the people of
India, but are little employed in Continental Europe.