Bronze Fennel - Foeniculum vulgare purpureum

BRONZE FENNEL

FOENICULUM VULGARE PURPUREUM

Family: Umbelliferae

Most people know fennel as a bulb used in italian cooking, or as a seed used in some breads.

That fennel is known as Florence fennel, and is culinary and medicinal in use. This one of my favorite plants in the garden. It comes up in early spring and puts on a show until frost. The ferny reddish color is very bright in the spring, but fades to a lovely green for the rest of the season. This is a good plant for screening off sections of the garden, and as a backdrop for other plants in descending heights, is a stunning sight.

Bronze fennel does not have the bulb. It is a perennial, which grows (in my garden) to around 5 feet tall. It would make a great screen in the summer. I started with one tiny plant, and every year find little starts all over the place. You can see how large the area has grown in the above photo. You can share plants and seed, as every year it also reseeds itself, so if you don't want to be overrun, it's best to cut the heads off.

Every type of flying insect hovers around this plant all day long, and sometimes all night. The flowers don't really have a scent, it's the green that carries the scent of anise. When the flowers turn to seed, it is ready to harvest those seeds. The easiest way is to clip off the flowerheads and put them in a basket and pull seeds off to collect.

Last year, a praying mantis (or 100) must have laid their eggs on all the bronze fennel plants, and one day we found so many baby mantis living off every branch of the plants. They eventually disappeared or got eaten by someone else. Other critters hang around too.

Fennel is one of the herbs, along with wormwood, that were used to make absinthe. The seed is used to make teas for digestive aids. Rabbits like fennel.

I don't have any recipes for this one, as I use this plant as an ornamental in my garden. I have plenty of seed to share.