ABSTRACT
Culantro is a biennial, tap-rooted herb with a basal rosette (i.e., concentric ring at ground level) of leaves about 4 cm (1½ in.) wide and up to 30 cm (1 ft.) long. The leaves have spiny or nely sawtoothed margins. The tiny pale blue or greenish-white §owers are borne in a dense cylindrical head, at the base of which are ve to seven spiny-margined leafy bracts that eventually re§ex downward. The species is native to continental tropical America and the West Indies and is now cultivated in tropical regions of Asia and Africa, where it has become established as a weed. It can be grown as an annual in most of the United States and southern Canada, and in similar temperate regions.
