Aniseed is the dried, oval, grey-brown "seed" — botanically the fruit — of Pimpinella anisum, a slender annual of the carrot family. Intensely sweet and licorice-scented, it owes its signature smell almost entirely to anethole, the same molecule that flavours fennel, licorice and star anise — though anise is a wholly different plant from the unrelated star anise (Illicium verum) it is so often confused with. It is the botanical behind pastis, ouzo, sambuca, anisette and many other anise spirits, and a defining note of Mediterranean and Middle Eastern baking.