Plant · P-612

Sweet Cicely

Myrrhis odorata

Sweet cicely is a long-lived perennial that yields three edible parts from one clump with no resowing: fern-like leaves tasting of aniseed - the classic way to sweeten sour cooked fruit without sugar - a taproot cooked as a vegetable, and green seed chewed as a mouth freshener. Bees, flies and beetles work its flowers, and the leaves and seed can be rubbed onto wood for a fragrant polish. It is a cool-climate, shade-tolerant plant that declines once summer heat piles up, wanting moist, rich soil and full sun to semi-shade rather than blazing sun. It self-sows freely once established, so a stand renews itself without effort - though fresh seed must be sown as soon as it ripens, since stored seed germinates poorly.