The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Pimpinella anisum
Also called Anise burnet saxifrage, Sweet Cumin
Anise is a herbaceous annual in the carrot family, grown mainly for its aromatic seeds (aniseed). It does best in a sunny spot with fertile, well-drained soil and is sown directly outdoors because its taproot resents transplanting.
Anise (; Pimpinella anisum), also called aniseed or rarely anix, is a flowering plant in the family Apiaceae native to the Eastern Mediterranean and Southwest Asia.
The flavor and aroma of its seeds have similarities with some other spices and herbs, such as star anise, fennel, liquorice, and tarragon. It is widely cultivated and used to flavor food, candy, and alcoholic drinks, especially around the Mediterranean.
Anise was first cultivated in the Middle East, and was brought to Europe for its medicinal value. It has been cultivated in Egypt for approximately 4,000 years.
Anise plants grow best in light, fertile, well-drained soil. The seeds should be planted as soon as the ground warms up in spring. Because the plants have a taproot, they do not transplant well after being established so they should either be started in their final location or be transplanted while the seedlings are still small.
Anise is a food plant for the larvae of some Lepidoptera species (butterflies and moths), including the lime-speck pug and wormwood pug.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Anise by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
