Talk:Illicium verum

Star Anise is readily available and cheap

I just bought 100 grams of Star Anise at a Chinese grocery for 69 cents. I hardly think that something that is rare (which the article seems to imply) would be so readily available and so cheap.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.22.213 (talk) 23:55, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

I saw it sold at a Wal-Mart in Florida!— Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.168.88.100 (talk) 21:00, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Star Anise Article

>http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-10/31/content_489173.htm

Cure bird flu with natural Chinese herb You NuoChina Daily Updated: 2005-10-31 05:21

The following is not meant to be a piece of expert opinion, but some wild thoughts of an individual (myself) on the ongoing alarm caused by bird flu.

Someone give me an answer, please. In a bird flu season, what can we do if we don't have the luck to get the Tamiflu drug? Can we instead have more meals cooked with Star Aniseeds, the drug's main material?

We have all heard about Tamiflu, reportedly the only major anti-bird flu drug that is available on Earth. As individuals in rich countries, and in rich cities of developing countries, are stockpiling the drug in their homes, we are told that the world simply does not have the capability to manufacture enough of it in a short time.

Implicitly, those who cannot get hold of Tamiflu, either because they cannot afford it or because they are unlucky while waiting for the supply, just have to die, or at least run a greater risk of losing their lives.

According to various sources, a full scale pandemic could cost China and Southeast Asia 4.5 million deaths and as much as US$150 billion to US$200 billion.

Every day, people are reading about the disease spreading to Europe, and talking about it spreading to Africa, where lives are the least protected. And there is a chance that the virus could mutate, take some new shapes and properties, and become even more threatening.

But few people have heard of Star Anise, or Star Aniseeds, which Chinese call "bajiao," or Eight-Angled Seeds, and traditionally use as a spice in oriental cooking. The chief ingredient of Tamiflu, called Shikimic Acid, is extracted from Star Aniseeds through a process patented by Roche Holding AG, the Swiss pharmaceutical company.

Last night, on Google's English news search, I got only 123 results for "aniseed; flu" as against 45,700 results for "bird flu." That, as a proportion, is a meagre 0.2 per cent.

The comparison speaks for itself. Obviously, the global press has far greater enthusiasm for spreading fear than useful information. And by spreading fear, the press is in effect helping pharmaceutical companies, global and local, generate the ever-growing demand for their products.

I didn't get to know the crucial role of Star Aniseeds until I stumbled on a report about a Taiwan health official declaring the island had developed its own Tamiflu equivalent, and had succeeded in only six months to achieve what Roche had achieved in 12 years. How many consumers would seriously consider buying a modern medicine developed in only six months? I wondered.

But the story does not end just there. Taiwan is not the only place to ignore the Roche patent, it seems. According to the Indian Express, Cipla, an Indian drug maker, recently also claimed to be nearly ready to launch its own version of Tamiflu, after already securing the material supply from China.

What intrigues me even more is that Star Aniseeds were not just a stock in the old-style Chinese kitchen. The star-shaped dark brown little fruits were also used as a medical herb to cure infection and aches, for at least six centuries.

If, as one may interpret the claims from Taiwan and India, something can be done in such a short time to turn the raw Star Aniseeds into a modern commodity, its process might not be utterly complicated. And if, as one can derive from the economic logic, pharmaceutical companies are all chasing their own monopolies, they must not like the idea of anyone curing a disease by using a natural resource directly, as the ancient medicine men would have suggested.

But since it has been known for such a long time that the raw Star Aniseeds have a curing effect, and that any short, if not hasty, attempts to make modern medicines would involve untold hazards, a safer way to use them might just be to use them without the industrial process, as a herb or as a spice.

However, what a pity that today there is not a single modern scientist to tell us whether this is doable - when many Chinese, having got the information that I got, are doing it anyway.

If it is doable, having a daily pot of stewed chicken (but never a sick one) spiced with Star Aniseeds would be a much tastier, and more affordable alternative for a developing society.

And any country can import some seeds of the plant, or order some shipments of the dried fruits from China. They will never cost a king's ransom.

=Star Anise is chemically quite different to tamiflu, the acid which used to be extracted from Star Anise goes through dozens of changes before it becomes tamiflu= Who added this statment?

Email: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn --Ricardo Carneiro Pires 21:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Production section

The chart in the production section of this page was identical to that on Anise and Fennel. If you follow the link cited (http://www.fao.org/es/ess/top/commodity.html?lang=en&item=711&year=2005), you will see that the data is world production of the three completely different crops combined (Anise Pimpinella anisum, Fennel Foeniculum vulgare, and Star Anise Illicium verum). The data is misleading in this context and I removed it. MrPMonday (talk) 21:06, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

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Culinary champion

I'm no expert but it may be worth noting that Heston Blementhal is a real champion of the use of star anise in all sorts of meat dishes... he says it adds a lot of umami flavour without the anise taste after cooking. See his bolegnese sauce recipe for an example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.217.82.85 (talk) 10:47, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

A topic of....

Fatsia has been added as it is associated with Chinese naming system--222.64.210.25 (talk) 01:43, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Plus Dysosma versipellis http://baike.baidu.com/view/29131.htm

http://baike.baidu.com/view/931915.htm --222.64.210.25 (talk) 04:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

http://www.bioinfo.cn/db05/KmzwSpecies.php?action=view&id=17173 --222.64.210.25 (talk) 04:32, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

http://baike.baidu.com/view/1393162.html?tp=0_00 --222.64.210.25 (talk) 04:34, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?gbv=2&hl=en&newwindow=1&q=allintitle%3A%20dysosma%20pleiantha%20Dysosma%20versipellis&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=is --222.64.210.25 (talk) 04:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The color of its flower

The flower in the photo is not the flower of Illicium verum: the color of its flower is not white but rather reddish. See Commons:Talk:Illicium verum.--miya (talk) 01:50, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

This article is mistitled

This article is about the spice "obtained from the star-shaped pericarp of Illicium verum" and not about the plant Illicium verum. It therefore ought to be titled eg "Star aniseed", and the title Illicium verum ought to be available for an article about the plant itself.88.167.23.116 (talk) 06:53, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Move to star anise

Common name, it’s been super well established that articles about plants shouldn’t be Be titled the Latin name. 97.113.243.4 (talk) 21:09, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 18 November 2024

Illicium verum → Star anise – WP:COMMONNAME Kolano123 (talk) 18:17, 18 November 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Frost 09:45, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support Ngrams show greater usage for the common name. Oppose per Abductive. Ngrams cannot prove this is just about the single species. Theparties (talk) 20:46, 18 November 2024 (UTC)
• Support per WP:FLORATITLES given star anise's culinary and other uses. ~~ Jessintime (talk) 16:11, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

Note: WikiProject Alternative medicine, WikiProject Food and drink, WikiProject Plants, and WikiProject Food and drink/Herbs and Spices task force have been notified of this discussion. Frost 09:48, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

• Support, star anise is the common name in English. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:34, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
• Support: per Jessintime's argument. YorkshireExpat (talk) 13:42, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
• Support: Common name is star anise, nothing for me to add! ~/Bunnypranav:<ping> 13:50, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
• Comment: star anise is the name of the spice, but is it the name of the plant? I support a move provided the opening makes this clear by saying something like "star anise is a spice produced from the tree Illicium verum". Peter coxhead (talk) 16:25, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose, there are two species that go by the name star anise; Chinese star anise, Illicium verum, the one used as a spice, and Japanese star anise, Illicium anisatum, a which is indistinguishable when dried and has put many people in the hospital (as well as two more poisonous species listed at List of plants known as star anise). Using common names does a disservice to the readers, and in this case might kill them. Abductive (reasoning) 21:17, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Abductive, this sounds like it can lead to confusion or worse. Eucalyptusmint (talk) 01:38, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
• Support. The COMMONNAME is clearly star anise, and this variety of star anise is the primary topic and has significantly more cultural relevance. I disagree with Abductive's reasoning; the COMMONNAME of the Japanese plant is "Japanese star anise", and I don't see how moving the page name creates any confusion (Wikipedia is not medical advice). Frostly (talk) 01:56, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
• Oppose per Abductive. For example, the online Flora of North America here uses "star-anise" to refer to the entire genus. Yes, "star anise" usually refers to Illicium verum, but now I've looked into it a bit more, not exclusively. If editors really want an English name, how about moving it to "Chinese star anise"? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:27, 29 November 2024 (UTC)
• support: I also have been looking into the use of "star anise" and various other common names. Searching books at archive.org I've found the very usual muddle of common names with none of them applied exclusively to any one taxon. Both "Chinese star anise" and "Japanese star anise" are applied to Illicium anisatum. Along with a variety of other common names including "aniseed", "Japanese anise", and "anise shrub". Flora's Plant Names, Firefly Dictionary of Plant Names. This should not push us away from using a common name because this is also true of the way that apple can be rather imprecisely used in English to usually mean the tree and fruit of Malus domestica, but also in Flora of North America to mean the genus Malus or by Cronquist et al. in Intermountain Flora.
  While muddled by frequent usage the predominate meaning of "star anise" is for Illicium verum. The entry for star anise in the Oxford English Dictionary is, "The star-shaped fruit of the evergreen tree, Illicium verum (family Schisandraceae) of Vietnam and China, which is dried and used as a spice in cooking due to its aromatic flavour similar to that of anise; a tree producing such fruit; cf. badian n."
  When searching for usage of "star anise" in texts to find the context of usage I have found that it mainly, first being used in the sense of the spice which exclusively comes from I. verum. In botanical usage I. verum is called star anise by a massive margin over any other species or alternate common name. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 22:53, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

  I don't dispute the frequency of use, but when other species called "star anise" are poisonous, precision matters. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:34, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

  I agree, but that is a reason to have the article for the only species that is used as a culinary spice at the common name. It will reduce the potential for confusion. The current situation makes it more likely that readers may make a mistake. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 15:13, 30 November 2024 (UTC)