Anise

Anise is an annual herb of the carrot family, Apiaceae, whose homeland is south-west Asia and the eastern Mediterranean, growing two to three feet tall. Its lowest leaves are simple and shallowly lobed, the upper ones finely cut and feathery; small white or yellow flowers crowd into umbels and give way to the small ribbed fruits known as aniseed. Their sweet, liquorice-like flavour goes into sweets, cakes and drinks such as ouzo, sambuca, pastis, raki and arak. It was first grown in the Middle East and has been farmed in Egypt for some four thousand years; Dioscorides and Pliny knew it, and in Virgil's day it was already a spice. Romans closed a rich meal, and sometimes a wedding feast, with a spiced cake containing it, and the seeds were once taken in part payment of taxes. Theophrastus held that seeds kept by the bed brought sweet dreams, the Romans laid a sprig by the pillow against bad ones, and in medieval England it was believed to turn aside the evil eye. In magic a little pillow stuffed with the seeds keeps nightmares away, the herb goes into protection and meditation incenses, the seed into purification baths, and fresh leaves set about a room or round a magic circle drive off evil.