Matthew Montchalin wrote:

My neighbor recently dug up a huge bush from his yard- it is about 5 feet
tall - and gave it to me in a bucket (wastepaper basket). He tells me
that it is 'anise' (and it has a faint licorice-like flavor to it) but
according to my gardening book, fennel grows 5 feet high, and anise
grows only 1 foot high. How can I tell which plant I've got?

I am perhaps confused or misled by the passages in my gardening
book that say that

anise

Feathery leaf, much like chervil

cilanthro

VILE smell, and coriander seed when it's done

fennel

Dilly leaf, possibly bulbous stem at ground level

licorice

Not in the same family at all.

are all members of the parsley family. Will they cross-breed
if I raise them next to each other?

No. And that's pretty much the definition of genus (as opposed to
species).

Anise is an annual, but
fennel is a perennial. If they are crossed, is there any way
of knowing in advance whether the result is a perennial?

Aniseed gets _huge_. 5' is about right.
Anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) is another anisy plant (in the
Lamiaceae, though - pretty blue or white flower spikes), as is sweet cicely
(Myrrhis odorata)(in the Apiaceae, like anise, parsley, cilantro and
fennel)(very soft fernlike leaf, longish seed that tastes of anise sweets
when it's green, but of nothing at all when it's ripe and black).

Licorice is NOT in the Apiaceae. It's in the Fabaceae; and its leaf does
not taste or smell of anise - the root tastes of sweet sweet licorice,
instead.

Henriette

--
Henriette Kress, AHG Helsinki, Finland
Henriette's herbal homepage: http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed