Flower in a desert?
The picture, taken by Belgian photographer Marie-Thérèse Ullens de Schooten (1905-1989), on the road to Mashhad in Iran, shows a beautifully otherworldly plant of the genus Ferula. Most likely, it is a specimen of Ferula foetida, a species that occurs over a wide swath of Eastern Iran, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan. Along with several other species of Ferula that grow wild in Iran, it is the source of the spice asafoetida.
Another, unidentified species of Ferula is considered a likely candidate for the source of the ancient spice and medicinal herb silphium, highly valued by the Greeks and Romans. It was produced only in Cyrenaica, the coastal region of what is now eastern Libya, and was reported to have become extinct in Roman times, due to excessive exploitation and/or the progressive desertification of the area.
