English common name is fennel fruit from mother plant Foeniculum vulgare
This drug contains 2–4% essential oil (depending on whether it is sweet or bitter fennel) and 10–20% fixed oil. The main components of the essential oil are anethole, fenchone, and estragole.
Used as an expectorant for coughs associated with colds. It is also used for the symptomatic treatment of mild, spasmodic gastrointestinal disorders accompanied by bloating and flatulence, and for the symptomatic relief of mild menstrual cramps.
The drug is a cremocarp (commonly called a diachene) that is nearly cylindrical, with a rounded base and a narrower apex bearing a large stylopodium. It is 3–12 mm long and about 4 mm wide. Often the mericarps (each half of the fruit) are separate. They are smooth, with five protruding slightly grooved ridges. On cross-section under a magnifying glass, four vittae (oil ducts) are visible on the dorsal side and two on the commissural side.
The drug is listed in the pharmacopoeia. A distinction is made between the bitter variety (amari fructus) and the sweet variety (dulcis fructus). It is also used for the extraction of essential oil, which is itself pharmacopoeial.
In pulverized drug under the microscope we can see:
Yellowish-orange fragments of secretory ducts with polygonal cells
Exocarp with stomata and oil droplets
Reticulate parenchyma of the mesocarp
Elongated thin, parquet-like endocarp cells overlapping with mesocarp
Aleurone grains and small calcium oxalate druses in the endosperm
