Anethi Fructus. Br. Dill Fruit.
Preparations: Oleum Anethi
"Dill Fruit is the dried ripe fruit of Peucedanum graveolens, Benth. and Hook. f." Br.
Garden Dill, Dilly, Anet; Aneth, Fr. Cod.; Fenouil puant, Fr.; Dill, G.; Eneldo, Sp.
Peucedanum graveolens (Anethum graveolens L.), or garden dill, resembles the fennel plant, but is smaller. It is an annual plant, three or four feet high, with a long spindle-shaped root; an erect, striated, jointed, branching stem; and bipinnate or tripinnate, glaucous leaves, which stand on sheathing footstalks and have linear and pointed leaflets. The flowers are yellow, and in large, flat, terminal umbels, destitute of involucre. The plant is a native of Spain, Portugal, and the south of France, and is found growing wild in various parts of Africa and Asia. It is cultivated in all the countries of Europe, and has been introduced into our gardens. The whole plant is aromatic, the leaves are used as a flavor for soups, sauces and pickles. For a paper by J. C. Umney describing the commercial varieties, see Year Book of Pharmacy, 1898, 374. The seeds, as the fruit is commonly called, are the only part used. They are " composed of two mericarps usually separate and freed from the pedicel; each broadly oval, about four millimetres long, and two to three millimetres broad; brown; very strongly compressed dorsally; dorsal ridges inconspicuous, but the lateral ridges prolonged into paler brown wings. In transverse section, six- vittae in each mericarp. Odor and taste agreeably aromatic." Br. These properties depend on a volatile oil, which is present in the fruits to the extent of 2.8 to 4 per cent. (See Oleum Anethi.) The bruised fruits impart their virtues to alcohol and to boiling water.
Uses.—Dill seeds have the properties common to the aromatics, but are very seldom used in this country. They may be given in powder or infusion.
Dose, of the fruit, from fifteen grains to a drachm (1-3.9 Gm.); of the oil, two or three minims (0.12-0.2 mil).
Off. Prep.—Aqua Anethi, Br.
