Angelica archangelica

• 1. Introduction

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  Angelica archangelica looks a great deal like several poisonous plants, including members of the genera Conium and Heracleum. The warning that comes with it is blunt. Nobody should eat it unless it has been identified with absolute certainty. Even so, a subspecies of this plant is grown on purpose for its sweetly scented edible stems and roots. How does a plant with dangerous lookalikes become a favorite of distillers and pastry cooks? What does a plant of the north need in order to thrive? And why does its name point to angels?

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• 2. Two Years of Growth

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  In its first year, angelica grows nothing but leaves. Only in the second year does the fluted stem climb, reaching as much as 2.5 meters, which is just over 8 feet. That two-year cycle makes it a biennial, and it belongs to the family Apiaceae. People know it as angelica, garden angelica, wild celery and Norwegian angelica.

  Each leaf is built from numerous small leaflets. These are divided into three principal groups, and each group is subdivided again into three lesser groups. The edges of the leaflets are finely toothed.

  Angelica grows only in damp soil, and it prefers to stand near rivers or other deposits of water. In July the flowers open. They are small and numerous, yellowish or greenish, and they gather into large, globular umbels. The fruits that follow are pale yellow and oblong.

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• 3. Where It Grows

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  In Iceland, the Faroe Islands and Greenland, angelica grows wild. So it does in Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark, mostly in the northern parts of those countries.

  The angelica sold commercially often comes from somewhere else. Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Germany and Poland are the usual sources.

  France grows it deliberately, mainly in the Marais Poitevin. This marsh region lies close to Niort, in the department of Deux-Sèvres.

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• 4. Kvanne in the North

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  From the 10th century on, people in Europe cultivated angelica as both a vegetable and a medicinal plant. By the 12th century it had become popular in Scandinavia. It holds a particular place in Sámi culture. Sámi cooks once used it as an herb, and it was known there as kvanne.

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• 5. Gin, Liqueurs, and Candy

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  Chartreuse, Bénédictine, Vermouth and Dubonnet are among the drinks flavored with angelica. In the kitchen it seasons omelettes and trout, and it is cooked down into jam.

  Gin distillers count the root among their most common botanicals. They often use it together with juniper berries and coriander, and the trio supplies a chief aromatic character. The root also appears in absinthes, aquavits and bitters.

  The long, bright-green stems are hollow, and they can be eaten. Cooks pick them clean of leaves, crystallize them in sugar syrup, and color them green. The result is candy, or decoration for cakes. Much of what makes the root valuable to a distiller comes from its aroma, which perfumers also prize.

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• 6. Scent and Chemistry

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  Among the Umbelliferae, angelica is unique for an aromatic odor that pervades the whole plant. It is a pleasant perfume, entirely different from fennel, parsley, anise, caraway or chervil. People have compared it to musk and to juniper.

  The essential oil in the root varies with the age of the root. Roots generally carry high levels of terpenes, including alpha-pinene and beta-phellandrene. Studies have found upwards of eighty different aroma compounds in samples.

  One compound gets special attention from perfumers and aroma chemists. Cyclopentadecanolide makes up less than 1 percent of the roots and less than half a percent of the seeds. Even in such small amounts, it gives angelica root a distinctive musky aroma. For culinary and aroma uses, the roots are generally preferred.

  The seeds have a similar chemistry. They contain alpha-pinene, beta-pinene, camphene, myrcene, beta-phellandrene, limonene, caryophyllene, borneol and carvone. Both seeds and roots also hold coumarins and furocoumarins. Archangelicin, bergapten, imperatorin, osthol, psoralen and xanthotoxin are among those isolated from a chloroform extract of the roots.

  A water extract of the root of the subspecies litoralis holds a different set of molecules. Adenosine, coniferin and the glycoside apterin are among them.

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• 7. Naming an Angel

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  The Latin feminine name Angelica implies something angel-like, and it dates from the mid-16th century. The plant was probably given the name because of its scent.

  The species name Archangelica has a second layer. It may come from an Old French term of the late 12th century for an angel of the highest order. It may instead come from the Greek word arkhangelos, meaning chief angel.

  Older botanical names for the same plant survive as synonyms. They are Archangelica officinalis and Angelica officinalis.

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