Fennel (Foeniculum vul-gare Mill.)

Plant Fennel (Foeniculum vul-gare Mill.) Is a perennial plant of the genus Foeniculum familii and Umbelliferae. This plant comes from southern Europe and the Mediterranean area, which later spread quite widely in various countries such as China, Mexico, India, Italian, Indian, and including Indonesia.

In Indonesia, there are two types of fennel which belong to the family Umbelliferae, the fennel (F. vulgare Mill.) And fennel Sowa (Anetum graveolens Linn.) Both types have been widely cultivated in Indonesia, especially fennel (F. vulgare Mill. ), while A. graveolens Linn more widely cultivated in the lowlands and the leaves are eaten as lalap.selain as seasoning, fennel plant has many uses ranging from roots, leaves, stems and seeds. Fennel leaves are used as in-uretik (facilitating urine) and his Macu transpiration. The roots of his merit as a cough medicine, laxative and a stomach ache give birth. Young plants are also used as medicine disturbance of the respiratory tract and fennel fruit extract can be used to treat heartburn.

The characteristics of this plant is that the plant height can reach 1-2 m with a lot of branching, grooved stems. Share pinnate leaves, oval to triangular with 3 dm long, yellow-colored flowers form a large collection of umbrellas. In a large umbrella are 15-40 small umbrella, umbrella with a long stalk 1-6 cm. Flower-shaped shirt with a length from 3.5 to 4 mm. In each seed there lies the oil tubes criss-cross her. At a young age fennel seeds colored green to yellow and then green, yellow and brown at the time of harvest.

Fruit is located in the middle of the umbrella generally contain volatile oil higher and sharper than the smell of fruit that is located in another part. Essential oils are the main varieties containing dulce anethol (50-80%), limonene (5%), fenchone (5%), estragol (methyl-chavicol), safrol, alpha-pinene (0.5%), camphene, beta-pinene, beta-myrcene and p-cymen. On the contrary vulgare varieties are not cultivated, sometimes contain more essential oils, but because it is characterized by a bitter fen-Chone (12-22%) sehing-ga cheaper than dulce varieties. Sources: Risfaheri and Ma'mun (1999)

Efficacy of this plant is to eliminate cold, joint pain reliever, lowers uric acid levels, hold heartburn, stomach reliever, add natural flavors, overcoming thrush and cough. The part used is the fruit is ripe. The treatment took 2-9 grams of dried fennel fruit boiled in 3 cups water until the remaining 1 cup. Or finely brewed with hot water and drink a cup of warm 1-2 times a day.