Coriandrum L.

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.