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Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) can be found growing wild in most parts of temperate Europe, but is generally considered indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean. It prefers limestone soils and is now naturalised in some parts of the UK, where it can be found from North Wales southwards and eastwards to Kent, being most frequent in Devon and Cornwall and on chalk cliffs near the sea. The plant is largely cultivated for the medicinal use of its seeds.

Fennel was well known to and cultivated by the Romans for its aromatic fruits and succulent, edible shoots. Pliny mentions its medicinal properties, and also that serpents eat it 'when they cast their old skins, and they sharpen their sight with the juice by rubbing against the plant'. In the Middle Ages, fennel together with St John's wort and other herbs, was used as a preventative of witchcraft and other evil influences and hung over doors on Midsummer's Eve to warn off evil spirits. It was commonly eaten as a condiment to the salt fish consumed during the period of Lent.