Fennel The inflated leaf bases are eaten as a vegetable, both raw and cooked. Several cultivars of Florence fennel are also known by several other names, notably the Italian name "finocchio". In North American supermarkets, it is often mislabeled as "anise". "Foeniculum vulgare" 'Purpureum' or 'Nigra', "bronze-leaved" fennel, is widely available as a decorative garden plant. Fennel has become naturalized along roadsides, in pastures, and in other open sites in many regions, including northern Europe, the United States, southern Canada, and much of Asia and Australia. It propagates well by seed, and is considered an invasive species and a weed in
HMCS Fennel commissioned into the Royal Navy on 16 January 1941. She was finished enough to make an ocean crossing as part of HX 113 and was completed at Greenock, United Kingdom. On the 15 May 1941 "Fennel" was one of ten corvettes loaned to Canada. She could be told apart from other Canadian Flowers by her lack of minesweeping gear and the siting of the after gun tub amidships. "Fennel" had four major refits during her career as a warship. The first took place at Halifax for a brief two-month refit beginning in October 1941. The second took place at New