2. a thorny tree or shrub, as the hawthorne. 3. the wood of such a plant. 4. a runic character (Ã¾), borrowed into the Latin alphabet and used to represent the initial th sounds of thin and they in Old English and of thin in modern Icelandic.sage It hardly makes a difference whether you get pricked by a thorn or a spineâit hurts just the same. But a person who studies plants might think there was a difference. Scientifically speaking, a thorn is a hard, pointed part of a stem or branch of a woody plant.
Anise oil is derived from the seeds and sometimes from the leaves. The oil, composed chiefly of anethole, is used in medicinals, dentifrices, perfumes, beverages, and, in drag hunting, to scent a trail for dogs in the absence of a fox. The anise of the Bible (Mat. 23.23) is dill, a plant of the same family.
A spice commonly called star anise, star anise seed, or Chinese star anise that closely resembles anise in flavor is obtained from the star-shaped pericarp of the fruit of Illicium velum which are harvested just before ripening.tar anise contains anethole, the same ingredient that gives the unrelated anise its flavor. Recently, star anise has come into use in the West as a less expensive substitute for anise in baking as well as in liquor production, most distinctively in the production of the liquor Galliano.