caraway: a genus of the digymia order, belonging to the pentandria class of plants.

Species, &c. 1. The caraway of the shops grows naturally in many places of Britain. It is a biennial plant, which rises from seeds one year, flowers the next, and perishes soon after the seeds are ripe. It hath a taper root like a parsnip, but much smaller, which runs deep into the ground, sending out many small fibres, and hath a strong aromatic taste. From the root arises one or two smooth, solid, channelled stalks, about two feet high, garnished with winged leaves, having long naked foot-stalks. 2. The hif-panicum is also a biennial, and is a native of Spain. It rises with a stronger stalk than the former, which seldom grows more than a foot and half high; but is closely garnished with fine narrow leaves like those of dill. Both these plants are propagated by seeds, which ought to be sown in autumn. Sheep, goats, and swine, eat this plant; cows and horses are not fond of it. Parkinson says, the young roots of caraway are better eating than parsnips. The tender leaves may be boiled with pot herbs. The seeds have an aromatic smell, and a warm pungent taste. They are used in cakes, incrustated with sugar, as sweet-meats, and distilled with spirituous liquors, for the sake of the flavour they afford. They are in the number of the four greater hot seeds; and frequently employed, as a stomachic and carminative, in flatulent colics and the like. See Materia Medica, no 218.