Shadow-beni

Eryngium foetidum, known as shadow-beni, culantro, Mexican coriander or fitweed, is a low biennial or short-lived perennial herb of the carrot family (Apiaceae), native to tropical Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and northern South America and now widely naturalised through the humid tropics. Unlike most umbellifers it forms a dense basal rosette of leaves rather than a leafy stem; the leaves are lance-shaped to oblanceolate, glossy, with finely spiny-toothed margins and a strong, pungent coriander-like aroma. From the centre rises a branched, somewhat spiny flowering stalk bearing small cylindrical to ovoid greenish flower heads, each subtended by a ruff of narrow, stiff, spine-tipped bracts characteristic of Eryngium. The tiny flowers give rise to small ridged schizocarp fruits. The whole plant is intensely aromatic and is cultivated as a culinary herb throughout the tropics.