Fennel is a hardy perennial with yellow (not blue) flowers and feathery leaves. This beautiful plant was well known to the Ancients and was cultivated by the ancient Romans for its aromatic fruits and succulent, edible shoots.

In the garden it grows about four feet tall. Indoors, it requires sun, moderate watering, and grows about fifteen inches high.

In medieval times fennel, along with with St. John's Wort, was considered a a preventative of witchcraft and other evil influences and was hung over doors on Midsummer's Eve to warn off evil spirits. It is also said to convey longevity and to give strength and courage.

Fennel was said to improve eyesight, and Longfellow alludes to this virtue in the plant:

Above the lower plants it towers,
The Fennel with its yellow flowers;
And in an earlier age than ours
Was gifted with the wondrous powers
Lost vision to restore.

It was formerly the practice to boil fennel with all fish, and it was mainly cultivated in kitchen gardens for this purpose. One herbal stated, "Its leaves are served nowadays with salmon, to correct its oily indigestibility, and are also put into sauce, in the same way as parsley, to be eaten with boiled mackerel."

Today cooks chop the "weed" or green leaves and use them in salads or with fish.

~~~ Orbit's Lytel Herball ~~~

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