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Eryngium foetidum L.

Synonym	:	Eryngium antihystericum Rottler
Family	:	Apiaceae
Local name	:	English - Long coriander Malayalam - African malli, Malli cheera
Flowering and fruiting period	:	February-November
Distribution	:	Indigenous to Central America; Introduced in Africa and Asia.
Distribution in Kerala	:	Kannur, Thrissur, Malappuram, Wayanad, Kozhikode, Palakkad, Idukki, Kollam,Thiruvananthapuram
Habitat	:	Cultivated
Endemic/Exotic	:	Exotic
Uses	:	It has been used in traditional medicine for burns, earache, fevers, hypertension, constipation, asthma, stomach ache, worms, infertility complications, snake bites, diarrhoea and malaria.
Key Botanical Characters:  An erect biennial herb 15-40 cm tall, strongly aromatic, its odour similar to that of coriander with furrowed stems, a short rootstock and fibrous roots. Leaves oblanceolate-oblong in outline. Flowers greenish, borne in dense, rounded cymes; involucral bracts 5-7, linear-lanceolate, and 3-7 mm wide, greatly exceeding the flower heads, leaf-like, spreading and reflexed with a few spiny teeth; flower heads cylindrical, broad, terminal on the branches or on short peduncles in the forks, sepals erect, lanceolate, longer than the petals, persistent, apex acute; petals greenish-white, oblanceolate to obovate, erect, clawed. Fruit globose or ovoid, compressed, densely papillose.