Skip to main content

Service Notice

The Western Australian Herbarium’s collections management system and census were set to read-only mode on 1 October 2025. Taxonomic updates published since this time are not being reflected in Florabase, herbarium collections, or Western Australia’s taxonomic names census (Nomos). Conservation listings displayed on Florabase may also be out of date. Please refer to DBCA’s Threatened species and communities webpage for the most recent Threatened and Priority Flora List, noting that recent taxonomic updates are similarly not included. Our database migration is moving to a staging phase. We thank you for your patience as we ensure the integrity of our biodiversity data, develop new workflows, and train staff to use the new systems. Please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns.

The notice period started at 12:00 pm on Wednesday, 1 October 2025 +08:00 and will end at 12:00 pm on Friday, 1 January 2027 +08:00.

Advanced Search

Coriandrum L.

Reference
Sp.Pl. [Linnaeus] 2:256 (1753)
Name Status
Current

Scientific Description

Family Apiaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Erect herbs; bearing essential oils, or without essential oils (?); resinous, or not resinous (?). Annual; plants with a basal concentration of leaves, or with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves (?). Young stems cylindrical. Helophytic, or mesophytic. Leaves small to large; alternate; ‘herbaceous’; petiolate; more or less sheathing. Leaf sheaths with free margins. Leaves gland-dotted, or not gland-dotted (?); aromatic; compound; pulvinate, or epulvinate (?); pinnate. Leaf blades pinnately veined. Leaves with stipules, or without stipules (?); without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hairs absent. Stem anatomy. Nodes multilacunar, or tri-lacunar (?). Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring, or anomalous (?); from a single cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite, or hermaphrodite and functionally male. Unisexual flowers present, or absent. Plants hermaphrodite, or andromonoecious. Entomophilous.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in umbels. Inflorescences compound. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose, or racemose (?). Inflorescences leaf-opposed; pedunculate; with involucral bracts, or without involucral bracts (involucre none or of a single, linear bract; involucel of several linear bracteoles). Flowers bracteate, or ebracteate; bracteolate; small; regular to somewhat irregular (?); 5 merous (except for the gynoecium); cyclic; tetracyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous; white, or pink. Calyx 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; distinctly lobed; persistent; somewhat accrescent. Corolla 5; 1 -whorled; polypetalous; valvate; unequal but not bilabiate, or regular (?); glabrous abaxially; glabrous adaxially; white, or pink. Androecium 5. Androecial members free of the perianth; all equal to markedly unequal (?); free of one another; 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous; inflexed in bud. Anthers dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; tetrasporangiate. Fertile gynoecium present, or absent (male flowers). Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 2 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synovarious; inferior. Ovary plurilocular; 2 locular. Gynoecium median. Epigynous disk present. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 2; free to partially joined (their bases thickened into a conical stylopodium crowning the ovary); apical. Stigmas wet type; non-papillate; Group IV type. Placentation axile, or apical (?). Ovules 1 per locule, or 2 per locule (usually two, but one abortive ?); pendulous; epitropous; non-arillate; anatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit non-fleshy; not hairy; a schizocarp. Mericarps 2 (primary ribs very low and inconspicuous, secondary ribs more sharply defined). Seeds endospermic. Endosperm oily. Embryo well differentiated. Cotyledons 2. Embryo achlorophyllous; straight. Seedling. Germination phanerocotylar.

Physiology, biochemistry. Aluminium accumulation not found. Photosynthetic pathway: C3.

Geography, cytology, number of species. Adventive.

Economic uses, etc. Source of the widely used spice, coriander.