This Lost Roman Era ‘Miracle plant’ May Have Been Rediscovered By Andy Corbley

Nevertheless, the newly-discovered plant is deeply medicinal, and chemical analysis of the ginseng-like root structure has turned up 30 secondary metabolites that carry anti-inflammatory, anti-cancerous, and perhaps most tellingly of all based on Pliney’s historical records, contraceptive properties.

It’s a tricky historical jigsaw puzzle, as no Roman ruins have turned up a mason jar with “silphium” written on it.

Silphium, based on its historical depictions on coins from the region of Libya, then-called Cyrenaica, and descriptions of taste, smell, physical shape and size, likely belonged to the genus Ferula, of the family Apicacea, of which there are 220 known species.

It also contains shyobunone, found in sage, rosemary, artichoke, and other plants with intoxicating smells.

A mainstay in fantasy-fiction, it’s rare that human civilization produces something in olden days that for some reason can’t be replicated in later times.

A mainstay in fantasy-fiction, it’s rare that human civilization produces something in olden days that for some reason can’t be replicated in later times.

They are herbaceous perennial plants growing to 1–4 meters tall, with stout, hollow, somewhat succulent stems. and usually yellow flowers produced in large umbels.

Ferula drudeana, with its wonderful smell, rich flavor, and medicinal qualities would be a wonderful addition to anyone’s pantry, regardless of whether or not it is the fabled silphium, traded at equal worth to silver in the Roman Empire.

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It’s a tricky historical jigsaw puzzle, as no Roman ruins have turned up a mason jar with “silphium” written on it.

It also contains shyobunone, found in sage, rosemary, artichoke, and other plants with intoxicating smells.

The golden-flowered “Silphium” was reported by Pliney the Elder as growing in modern-day Libya, and has been translated as being a prescription for everything from “stomach pain to wart removal, baldness and dental pain, for pleurisy and epilepsy, and a balm, according to one lyrical translation, for both the ‘dog-bitten’ and the ‘scorpion-smitten,'” writes Nat Geo.

Ferula drudeana, with its wonderful smell, rich flavor, and medicinal qualities would be a wonderful addition to anyone’s pantry, regardless of whether or not it is the fabled silphium, traded at equal worth to silver in the Roman Empire.

The farmers showed how sheep and goats would enjoy chewing up the drudeana which matches historian Pliney’s descriptions, and of the amorous behavior of flies following a drink of the plant’s pearl-white sap.

They are herbaceous perennial plants growing to 1–4 meters tall, with stout, hollow, somewhat succulent stems. and usually yellow flowers produced in large umbels.

Yet more proof was found when Professor Miski observed its rapid and dispersed growth following rain—another piece of corroborating evidence.

The golden-flowered “Silphium” was reported by Pliney the Elder as growing in modern-day Libya, and has been translated as being a prescription for everything from “stomach pain to wart removal, baldness and dental pain, for pleurisy and epilepsy, and a balm, according to one lyrical translation, for both the ‘dog-bitten’ and the ‘scorpion-smitten,'” writes Nat Geo.

The farmers showed how sheep and goats would enjoy chewing up the drudeana which matches historian Pliney’s descriptions, and of the amorous behavior of flies following a drink of the plant’s pearl-white sap.

However Silphium was lost by the time of Nero, who was reportedly to have been given the last known stalk in existence.

It also contains shyobunone, found in sage, rosemary, artichoke, and other plants with intoxicating smells.

Istanbul University professor Mahmut Miski is growing ferula drudeana, a newly-discovered member of the genus which he believes has all the characteristics of ancient silphium, on the slopes of a volcano in the Cappadocia region of Turkey.