It is an annual or biennial glabrous herb, valued for its aromatic seeds. Roots are fusiform and thick. Stem is slender and the branches are grooved and hollow. The leaves are pinnately- dissected. Leaflets are ovate, cleft into linear, entire or dentate lobes. The flowers are in dense white umbels. In Fruits, the schizocarp are oblong-oval and yellowish brown in colour. The mericarps are aromatic, 4 to 6 mm long, hard and sharp, mostly curved, light to dark brown and with five prominent ribs. The separated mericarps (commonly called seeds) constitute the commercial caraway. It has a characteristic agreeable odor and an aromatic, somewhat warm and sharp taste.

Antiseptic, antispasmodic, aromatic, carminative, digestive, emmenagogue, galactogogue, stimulant, expectorant, antiemetic and relieves bad breath (seed); aids in digestion and carminative (seed and fruit); alleviates spasms (essential plant oil and alcohol fruit extract).

Caraway
Carum carvi
Plants for a Future
Herb Information

Carvone, limonene, camphene, alpha and beta-pinene, P-cymene, cadinene, myrcene, carveyl acetate, cadinene, carveols, germacrene and traces of carvacrol (essential plant oil); acetaldehyde, alpha-linolenic acid, alpha-phyllandrene, alpha-pinene, beta-carotene, beta-pinene, carvone, furfural, lauric acid, limonene, linoleic acid, myrcene, myristic acid, myristicin, niacin, oleic acid, palmitic acid, quercetin, riboflavin, terpinolene, thiamin, thujone (fruit); alpha-terpinene (seed); carvacrol, tannin, terpinen-4-ol (plant)

Stomach problems, bronchitis, to increase the production of breast milk in nursing mothers (seed); rheumatism and lumbago (seed vapor); in cancer, cholera, abscesses, flatulence, halitosis, headache and as an emmenagogue; "Caraway water" is used as a veh.

Stary, Medicinal Herbs and Plants.