Star Anise
Illicium verum
Star anise seems almost suspiciously good at looking like its name. Each dried fruit forms a woody star around a central point, usually with several narrow arms opening along their upper edges. Inside each is a smooth brown seed, although plenty escape before the fruit ever reaches a jar.
The tree doesn't grow little brown stars, of course. Illicium verum is an evergreen native to southern China and northern Vietnam, producing pale fleshy flowers followed by green developing fruits. Drying does most of the familiar visual work. Green becomes reddish brown, the fruit hardens and the individual sections begin to split open.
Eight points may be the version everyone draws. The tree isn't particularly concerned with symmetry.
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Order: Austrobaileyales
Family: Schisandraceae
Genus: Illicium
Species: Illicium verum
Common Names: Star Anise, Chinese Star Anise, Star Aniseed
Plant Form: Evergreen tree
Material: Dried fruit
Native Range: Southern China and northern Vietnam
How a Flower Makes a Star
Illicium verum grows as a small to medium evergreen tree with glossy leaves and pale flowers that can vary from creamy white and yellowish to pink.
The star begins with the structure of those flowers. Rather than developing into one continuous fruit, several separate ovaries mature together around the centre. Each becomes a follicle, a dry fruit that eventually opens along one side to expose its seed. Put the follicles together and the familiar star appears.
Eight is common, but it isn't a rule. A fruit may develop seven points, nine or another number, and the follicles aren't always perfectly matched. One may be smaller than its neighbours or sit at an awkward angle.
Perfect stars are very good at getting photographed. A jarful gives a rather more realistic impression.
An Old Branch of the Flowering Plant Family
Illicium belongs to Austrobaileyales, one of the early diverging lineages among living flowering plants. That description is easy to misunderstand. It doesn't mean the star anise tree growing today is an unchanged survivor from the earliest flowering plants.
Instead, the branch containing Illicium separated relatively early in the evolutionary history represented by living angiosperms. Modern star anise has continued evolving just like everything else.
The genus contains numerous species across parts of Asia and the Americas, and some produce fruits similar enough to cause trouble once dried.
Japanese star anise, Illicium anisatum, is particularly important here. Its fruits resemble those of I. verum, but the plant contains toxic compounds and isn't interchangeable with true star anise. When closely related plants produce similar little brown stars, the scientific name becomes considerably more useful than appearance alone.
Anise Without the Anise
Star anise smells remarkably like anise. Botanically, the two have very little reason to.
True anise, Pimpinella anisum, belongs to Apiaceae alongside fennel, parsley and carrots. Illicium verum belongs to Schisandraceae on a very different branch of the flowering plant family tree.
The resemblance reaches the nose through chemistry instead. Both are strongly associated with anethole, an aromatic compound responsible for much of their sweet liquorice like scent.
Break a star and the fragrance becomes stronger as more aromatic material is exposed. Interestingly, much of that scent comes from the fruit wall rather than the glossy seed sitting inside it.
Two unrelated plants arrived at a remarkably similar smell.
From Southern China to Much Further Away
Star anise has a long history of cultivation in southern China, while northern Vietnam is also important to its natural distribution and commercial production.
Dried fruits could travel considerably further than the trees themselves. Their concentrated aroma made them valuable as a spice, while their distinctive appearance meant there wasn't much mystery about what was being traded. Even after a long journey, a star still looked like a star.
I. verum later acquired a rather different commercial importance as a source of shikimic acid. This naturally occurring compound can be used as a starting material in pharmaceutical manufacture, including processes used to produce some antiviral medicines. Star anise has been one commercial source, although shikimic acid can also be produced or obtained in other ways.
It's an unexpected second career for a familiar spice.
A Star Before Anyone Adds Symbolism
Whole star anise has found an easy place in incense, decorative botanical work and contemporary ritual practice. It brings fragrance, but unlike many aromatic materials it also brings a very recognisable shape.
Modern folk and metaphysical traditions commonly associate star anise with protection, luck, clarity and divination. Whole fruits may be kept as charms or combined with other botanicals according to the intention of the practitioner.
Its appearance almost invites symbolic interpretation. Stars already carry extensive cultural associations, and I. verumproduces one without anybody needing to cut, arrange or carve it into shape.
That doesn't make those meanings inherent properties of the fruit, nor does every tradition assign star anise the same role. They're associations that have developed around a botanical that happened to arrive unusually well dressed for them.
The Missing Seeds Aren't Missing Much
Dried star anise is sturdy enough to feel woody but brittle enough that its points can snap with rough handling. Packing the fruits tightly tends to turn particularly nice stars into collections of loose follicles.
Seeds also fall out naturally. Each follicle opens as the fruit matures, so an empty section doesn't necessarily mean anything has gone wrong. A jar may gradually collect smooth brown seeds at the bottom while the stars above become increasingly hollow.
A closed container kept somewhere cool, dry and away from strong sunlight helps preserve the aroma and keeps humidity away from the dried fruit. Leaving whole stars intact until they're needed also reduces unnecessary loss of aromatic compounds.
In this case, there's another good reason not to crush them.
They've already done all the arranging themselves.
In the Apotheca
Star anise survives drying unusually well as an identifiable piece of a plant. Flowers collapse, leaves curl and cut roots can become almost impossible to picture underground. Illicium verum goes from green fruit to brown fruit and somehow becomes more recognisable in the process.
A jar also corrects the neat little symbol we tend to imagine. There are seven pointed stars beside eight pointed ones, uneven follicles beside beautifully balanced examples, broken tips and seeds that have abandoned their places entirely.
That's rather more interesting than a row of perfect stars.
The symmetry is real. So is the variation.
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