_Semen Coriandri_; _Coriander Fruits_, _Coriander Seeds_, _Corianders_;
F. _Fruits de Coriandre_; G. _Koriander_.
=Botanical Origin=—_Coriandrum sativum_ L., a small glabrous, annual
plant, apparently indigenous to the Mediterranean and Caucasian
regions, not known growing wild, but now found as a cornfield weed
throughout the temperate parts of the Old World. It is cultivated in
many countries, and has thus found its way even to Paraguay. In England
the cultivation of coriander has long been carried on, but only to a
very limited extent.
=History=—Coriander appears to occur in the famous Egyptian papyrus
Ebers; it is also mentioned, under the name of Kustumburu, in early
Sanskrit authors, and is also met with in the Scriptures.[1252]
The plant owes its names Κόριον, Κορίαννον, and Κοριάνδρον, or also
in the middle ages, Κλάνδρον, to the offensive odour it exhales when
handled, and which reminds one of bugs,—in Greek Κόρις. This character
caused it to be regarded in the middle ages as having poisonous
properties.[1253] The ripe fruits which are entirely free from the
fœtid smell of the growing plant, were used as a spice by the Jews
and the Romans, and in medicine from a very early period. Cato, who
wrote on agriculture in the 3rd century B.C., notices the cultivation
of coriander. Pliny states that the best is that of Egypt. It is of
frequent occurrence in the book “De opsoniis et condimentis” of Apicius
Cœlius, about the 3rd century of our era. Coriander is also included in
the list of Charlemagne, alluded to pages 92, 98, etc.
Coriander was well known in Britain prior to the Norman Conquest, and
often employed in ancient Welsh and English medicine and cookery.
[1252] Exod. xvi. 31; Num. xi. 7.
[1253] Petrus de Abbano, _Tract. de Venenis_, Venetiis, 1473. capp. 25.
46.
=Cultivation=—Coriander, called by the farmers _Col_, is cultivated in
the eastern counties of England, especially in Essex. It is sometimes
sown with caraway, and being an annual is gathered and harvested the
first year, the caraway remaining in the ground. The seedling plants
are hoed so as to leave those that are to remain in rows 10 to 12
inches apart. The plant is cut with sickles, and when dry the seed is
thrashed out on a cloth in the centre of the field. On the best land,
15 cwt. per acre is reckoned an average crop.[1254]
[1254] R. Baker, in Morton’s _Cyclopædia of Agriculture_, i. (1855) 545.
=Description=—The fruit of coriander consists of a pair of
hemispherical mericarps, firmly joined so as to form an almost regular
globe, measuring on an average about ⅕ of an inch in diameter, crowned
by the stylopodium and calycinal teeth, and sometimes by the slender
diverging styles. The pericarp bears on each half, 4 perfectly straight
sharpish ridges, regarded as secondary (_juga secundaria_); two other
ridges, often of darker colour, belonging to the mericarps in common,
the separation of which takes place in a rather sinuous line. The
shallow depression between each pair of these straight ridges is
occupied by a zigzag raised line (_jugum primarium_), of which there
are therefore 5 in each mericarp. It will thus be seen that each
mericarp has 5 (zigzag) so-called _primary ridges_, and 4 (keeled and
more prominent) _secondary_, besides the lateral ridges which mark the
suture or line of separation. There are no vittæ on the outer surface
of the pericarp. Of the 5 teeth of the calyx, 2 often grow into long,
pointed, persistent lobes; they proceed from the outer flowers of the
umbel.
Though the two mericarps are closely united, they adhere only by the
thin pericarp, enclosing when ripe a lenticular cavity. On each side
of this cavity, the skin of the fruit separates from that of the seed,
displaying the two brown vittæ of each mericarp. In transverse section,
the albumen appears crescent-shaped, the concave side being towards the
cavity. The carpophore stands in the middle of the latter as a column,
connected with the pericarp only at top and bottom.
Corianders are smooth and rather hard, in colour buff or light brown.
They have a very mild aromatic taste, and, when crushed, a peculiar
fragrant smell. When unripe, their odour, like that of the fresh plant,
is offensive. The nature of the chemical change that occasions this
alteration in odour has not been made out.
The Indian corianders shipped from Bombay are of large size and of
elongated form.
=Microscopic Structure=—The structural peculiarities of coriander fruit
chiefly refer to the pericarp. Its middle layer is made up of thick
walled ligneous prosenchyme, traversed by a few fibro-vascular bundles
which in the zigzag ridges vary exceedingly in position.
=Chemical Composition=—The essential oil of coriander has a composition
indicated by the formula C₁₀H₁₈O, and is therefore isomeric with
borneol. If the elements of water are abstracted by phosphoric
anhydride, it is converted, according to Kawalier (1852), into an oil
of offensive odour, C₁₀H₁₆.
The fruits yield of volatile oil from 0·7 to 1·1 per cent.; as the
vittæ are well protected by the woody pericarp, corianders should be
bruised before being submitted to distillation. Trommsdorff (1835)
found the fruits to afford 13 per cent. of fixed oil.
The fresh herb distilled in July when the fruits were far from ripe,
yielded to one of us (F.) from 0·57 to 1·1 per mille of an essential
oil possessing in a high degree the disagreeable odour already alluded
to. This oil was found to deviate the ray of polarized light 1·1° to
the right when examined in a column 50 mm. long. The oil distilled by
us from ripe commercial fruit deviated 5·1° to the right.
=Production and Commerce=—Coriander is cultivated in various parts
of Continental Europe, and, as already stated, to a small extent in
England. It is also produced in Northern Africa and in India. In
1872-73, the export of coriander from the province of Sind[1255]
was 948 cwt.; from Bombay[1256] in the same year 619 cwt. From
Calcutta[1257] there were shipped in 1870-71, 16,347 cwt.
=Uses=—Coriander fruits are reputed stimulant and carminative, yet are
but little employed in medicine. They are however used in veterinary
practice, and by the distillers of gin, also in some countries in
cookery.