Coriander Coriander Coriander (; "Coriandrum sativum"), also known as cilantro () or Chinese parsley, is an annual herb in the family Apiaceae. All parts of the plant are edible, but the fresh leaves and the dried seeds are the parts most traditionally used in cooking. Most people perceive the taste of coriander leaves as a tart, lemon/lime taste, but a smaller group, of about 4–14% of people tested, think the leaves taste like bath soap, as linked to a gene which detects aldehyde chemicals also present in soap. Coriander is native to regions spanning from southern Europe and northern Africa to
Parsley from πέτρα ("petra"), "rock, stone", + σέλινον ("selinon"), "celery". Mycenaean Greek se-ri-no, in Linear B, is the earliest attested form of the word "selinon". Garden parsley is a bright green, biennial plant in temperate climates, or an annual herb in subtropical and tropical areas. Where it grows as a biennial, in the first year, it forms a rosette of tripinnate leaves 10–25 cm long with numerous 1–3 cm leaflets, and a taproot used as a food store over the winter. In the second year, it grows a flowering stem to tall with sparser leaves and flat-topped 3–10 cm diameter umbels