by Piter Kehoma Boll
Today I decided to present again a popular species and a very controversial one regarding personal taste, Coriandrum sativum, known in English as coriander or cilantro. Although it is a well-known spice, there is always some things that we don’t know about this plant.
Coriander is native from Western Asia and Southern Europe. It is a herb that grows up to 50 cm in height and has leaves of variable shape, broader and lobed at the base of the plant and slender and feathery at the top, around the flowers. The flowers have white or very pale pink petals and are arranged in umbels, the typical inflorescence of plants in the family Apiaceae, which is also known as Umbelliferae for obvious reasons. The flowers are asymmetrical, with the petals that point away from the center of the inflorescence being much longer that the ones pointing toward the center. The fruis are schizocarps, a type of dry fruit that splits into smaller parts called mericarps.
Coriander is used as a food by humans since pre-historical times. The oldest evidence comes from desiccated mericarps found in the Nahal Hemar cave in Palestine and dated back to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (around 8800–6500 BC). Half a liter of coriander mericarps were also found in the tomb of Tutankhamen, suggesting that this plant was cultivated in Egypt, since it is not native from that region.
Humans use the whole plants as food, but the most valued parts are the fresh leaves and dried seeds. Some people enjoy the taste of coriander leaves, while others hate it. Genetic and populational studies have shown that these differences in preferences have likely a genetic origin, with the two groups having different senses of smell, i.e., they are more sensitive to different chemicals found in the leaves.
Coriander aqueous extracts and essential oil showed to have many important properties, including analgesic, anthelmintic, antibacterial, anti-cancer, anti-convulsant, anti-fungal, anti-inflamatory, antioxidant and anxiolytic activities, among many others, so that the plant has the potential to lead to the development of many new medications.
What about you? Are you a coriander lover or a coriander hater?
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References:
Laribi, B., Kouki, K., M’Hamdi, M., & Bettaieb, T. (2015). Coriander (Coriandrum sativum L.) and its bioactive constituents. Fitoterapia, 103, 9-26.
Wikipedia. Coriander. Available at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriander>. Access on 20 May 2021.
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