Head of agriculture denies altering strongly flavoured plant (7)
I believe the answer is:
aniseed
'strongly flavoured plant' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I can't understand how they can define each other.
'head of agriculture denies altering' is the wordplay.
'head of' says to take the initial letters.
'altering' indicates anagramming the letters.
The initial letter of 'agriculture' is 'a'.
'denies' anagrammed gives 'niseed'.
'a'+'niseed'='ANISEED'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for aniseed that I've seen before include "Strong herbal flavouring" , "Liquorice flavouring, used in cookery" , "taste of Pernod, perhaps?" , "Flavouring herb" , "Licorice-like flavour" .)