New Crop FactSHEET

Perilla

Contributor: David Brenner

Common Names
Scientific Names
Uses
Origin
Crop Status
Botany
Crop Culture(Agronomy/Horticulture)
Germplasm
1. Government Germplasm Collections
2. Access to Commercial Sources
Key References
Selected Experts

Common Names

English: perilla, beefsteak plant, chinese basil, purple mint
Bengali: ban tulsi
Chinese: tzu ssu, yeh-ssu, chi-ssu, hung-sha-yao, ts'ao-t'ou, tsu-shih ts'ao,
Hindi: bhanjira
Japanese: shiso, egoma, shisonoha (red leaved form), umeboshi (plum pickled with perilla)
Korean: kkaennip namul

Scientific Names

Species: Perilla frutescens (L.) Britton
Three other Perilla species are recognized by some authorities, but the distinctions are ambiguous, and a taxonomic revision is needed.

Family: Lamiaceae (Labiatae)

Uses

The seed oil is used for cooking, as a drying oil, and as a fuel. The seeds are eaten by people and used as bird seed. The foliage is used as a potherb, for medicine, and for food coloring. The foliage is also distilled to produce an essential oil for flavoring. The plants are grown as ornamentals.

Origin

Asia. It is a traditional crop of China, India, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and other Asian countries.

Crop Status

In South Korea 40,800 ha were in production in 1991. Korean plantings are often partly harvested first as a potherb, and later the seeds are harvested (Lee et al. 1993). The average seed yield in Korea is 770 kg/ha in commercial production (Lee et al. 1989) although research plots can yield twice as much (summarized by Brenner 1993).

Ethnic food stores in the United States that cater to people from Korea and Japan generally carry some perilla products including: fresh greens in season, seed oil, pickled plums, plum sauce and other condiments. Perilla is infrequently used in the United States as an ornamental bedding plant with green or brightly colored red foliage.

Seed Oil

The seeds of perilla contain 31 to 51% of a drying oil similar to tung or linseed oil (all drying oils leave a hard protective surface when dry). Perilla seed oil has been used in paints, varnishes, linoleum, printing ink, lacquers, and for protective waterproof coatings on cloth. Perilla competes with linseed as a drying oil. The oil has also been used for cooking and fuel. The spent seed meal can be fed to ruminants.

The oil is highly unsaturated, with an iodine number of 185 to 208, and includes linolenic, linoleic, and oleic acids. The high linolenic content of the oil (64%) makes it unstable due to oxidation; plant breeders are developing new varieties with low linolenic content for edible oil and high linolenic oil for industrial uses (Lee et al. 1993).

Culinary

Perilla foliage and seed oil are used in Korean cooking. The foliage is used as a potherb and a garnish in Japan. The seeds are eaten in Japan, Korea, and India.

In Japan the foliage also provides a red (anthocyanin) food coloring and specialized red-leaved perilla varieties are used in the production of pickled plums. The perilla pigment is most stable under cold, acidic conditions, but light can bleach the pigment (Suyama et al. 1983). In addition to food coloring, perilla adds a antimicrobial agent to pickled foods.

Volatile Oil

The volatile oil of perilla is used as a flavoring agent, in which perilla aldehyde is the desirable flavoring compound. One of the aldehyde isomers is 2,000 times as sweet as sugar and four to eight times as sweet as saccharin (Guenther 1949). Perilla alcohol, prepared from perilla aldehyde, is used in fragrances, and has legal food status in the United States. A perilla line from Bangladesh is a potential commercial source of rosefuran, a compound of interest in flavoring and perfumery (Misra and Husain 1977).

Perilla genotypes with different volatile oil chemistries have been crossed to allow study of the genetic control of biosynthetic pathways. Through these crosses, chemotypes have been developed that demonstrate classical genetic segregation patterns (summarized by Brenner 1993). One genotype lacks perilla aldehyde but has perilla ketone. One recent example of this type of investigation involves a geranial-producing perilla (Honda et al. 1994).

Traditional Medicinal Uses

Asian herbalists prescribe perilla for cough and lung afflictions, influenza prevention, restless fetus, seafood poisoning, incorrect energy balance, etc (summarized by Brenner 1995). Studies of perilla volatile oil have revealed that distinct chemotypes of perilla have dramatically different biological effects (summarized by Brenner 1995). The perilla aldehyde chemotype is the source of Japanese "ao-shiso" a medicine with an agreeable fragrance.

Toxicity

Perilla is ordinarily avoided by cattle but has been implicated in cattle poisoning. Plants are most toxic if cut and dried for hay late in the summer, during seed production. Perilla ketone causes pulmonary edema (fluid in the lung cavity) in many animal species, although not in pigs or dogs. In Japan 20 to 50% of long-term workers in the perilla industry develop dermatitis on their hands due to contact with perillaldehyde. Perilla toxicity is reviewed by Brenner (1993).

Botany

Identification

The best diagnostic characteristics of perilla are the net-patterned testa of the nutlets. Perilla superficially resembles basil and coleus. Dry skeletons of the plants persist into the spring; their racemes retain dry papery calyces when the purple to white flowers have fallen away.

Weed Ecology

Perilla is a common weed of pastures and roadsides in the southeastern United States (Brenner 1993). One reason for perilla's survival in pastures, is that cattle avoid it. It stands 15 cm tall for most of the summer. In August, it blooms and its stem elongates rapidly. The plant reaches a height of approximately 1 m before being killed by frost.

Photoperiod

Perilla has been used by plant physiologists to investigate floral induction. Long nights induce flowering, but different accessions have different critical night lengths. Plants become photosensitive at the forth leaf pair stage. Flowering starts 18 to 20 days after the start of long nights. After 30 long nights, plants will bloom until they die, regardless of subsequent daylength. The response of perilla to photoperiod is reviewed by Brenner (1993).

Crop Culture(Agronomy/Horticulture)

Perilla is a summer annual, adapted to warm humid climates. The seeds can be planted one cm deep after danger of frost. The flowers self-pollinate without insect visits (Brenner 1993).

One of the greatest difficulties in perilla cultivation is the limited seed viability in storage. At room temperature, the seeds can die in less than a year. Lowered temperature and lowered humidity improve storage life (summarized by Brenner 1993).

Germplasm

Government Germplasm Collections

United States:

David M. Brenner, North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station, Agronomy Department, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011. Tel:515-294-6786; Fax:515-294-4880; E-mail:nc7db@ars-grin.gov

Nineteen accessions, including the following representative examples:
PI 248668 early maturity oilseed
PI 553087 red foliage, for food coloring, or ornamental
PI 546460 white seeded from Nepal
PI 572264 late-maturity oilseed, modern Korean cultivar

Japan:

Mr. Shirata, National Institute of Agrobiological Resources, Kannondai, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, 305 JAPAN. Tel.:81-298-38-7461; Fax:81-298-38-7408 E-mail:kazukun@abr.affrc.go.jp

India:

Director, NBPGR Regional Station, SHILLONG - 793013, INDIA

Korea:

Dr. Bong Ho Lee, Senior Researcher Industrial Crops, Crop Experiment Station, Rural Development Administration, Suwon, 441-100, KOREA. Tel:0331-292-3823; Fax:0331-292-4560

Access to Commercial Sources

"Cornucopia: a Source Book of Edible Plants" by Stephen Facciola. Kampong Publications, 1870 Sunrise Dr., Vista, California, 92084. (6 kinds of Perilla.)

"Andersen Horticultural Library's Source List of Plants and Seeds" available from: Anderson Horticultural Library, Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, 3675 Arboretum Drive, Box 39, Chanhassen, Minnesota, 55317-0039. (4 kinds of Perilla.)

Key References

(This perilla FactSHEET is extracted from Brenner (1993) which has an expanded bibliography.)

Brenner, D.M. 1993. Perilla: botany, uses, and genetic resources, p. 322-328. In: J. Janick and J.E. Simon (eds.) New Crops, John Wiley and Sons, NY.
Guenther, E. 1949. The essential oils. vol 3. D. Van Nostrand, New York.
Honda, G., A. Yuba, A. Nishizawa, and M. Tabata. 1994. Genetic control of geranial formation in Perilla frutescens. Biochemical Genetics 32(5/6):155-159.
Lee, J., E. Han, H. Park, J. Bang. 1989. Review of the research results on perilla and its prospects in Korea. In: Proceedings of national symposium on oil crop production and its utilization. Crop Experiment Station, Rural Development Administration, Suwon, Korea.
Lee, B.H., J.I. Lee, C.B. Park, S.W. Lee, and Y.H. Kim. 1993. Fatty acid composition and improvement of seed oil in perilla. Crop Production and Improvement Technology in Asia :471-479.
Misra, L.N., and A. Husain. 1987. The essential oils of Perilla ocimoides: a rich source of rosefuran. Planta Med. 53:379-390.
Suyama, K., M. Tamate, and S. Adachi. 1983. Color stability of shisonin, red pigment of a perilla (Perilla ocimoides L. var. crispa Benth.). Food Chem. 10:69-77.

Selected Experts

David M. Brenner, North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station, Agronomy Department, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011. Tel:515-294-6786; Fax:515-294-4880; E-mail:nc7db@ars-grin.gov

Bong Ho Lee, Senior Researcher Industrial Crops, Crop Experiment Station, Rural Development Administration, Suwon, 441-100, KOREA. Tel:0331-292-3823; Fax:0331-292-4560

James E. Simon, Center for New Crops & Plant Products, Department of Horticulture, Horticulture Building-1165, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907-1165
Tel:765-494-1328; Fax:765-494-0391; E-mail jim_simon@hort.purdue.edu

Contributor: David M. Brenner, North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station, Agronomy Department, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011.

Last update Tuesday, February 24, 1998 by aw