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
Fennel ("Ferula communis") is a large, coarse plant, with a pungent aroma, which grows wild in the Mediterranean region and is only occasionally grown in gardens elsewhere. Other species of the genus "Ferula" are also commonly called giant fennel, but they are not culinary herbs. In North America, fennel may be found growing in the same habitat and alongside natives osha ("Ligusticum porteri") and "Lomatium" species, useful medicinal relatives in the parsley family. Most "Lomatium" species have yellow flowers like fennel, but some are white flowered and resemble poison hemlock. "Lomatium" is an important historical food plant of Native Americans known