Silphion cured diseases and made food tasty, but Emperor Nero allegedly consumed the last stalk. Now, a Turkish researcher thinks he’s found a botanical survivor.
Excerpt from this story from National Geographic:
From before the rise of Athens to the height of the Roman Empire, one of the most sought-after products in the Mediterranean world was a golden-flowered plant called silphion. For ancient Greek physicians, silphion was a cure-all, prized for everything from stomach pain to wart removal. For Roman chefs, it was a culinary staple, crucial for spicing up an everyday pot of lentils or finishing an extravagant dish of scalded flamingo. During the reign of Julius Caesar, more than a thousand pounds of the plant was stockpiled alongside gold in Rome’s imperial treasuries, and silphion saplings were valued at the same price as silver.
But just seven centuries after the adored plant was first documented growing along the coast of Cyrenaica, in what is now modern Libya (according to one chronicler, it was in 638 B.C. after a “black rain” fell) silphion disappeared from the ancient Mediterranean world.
Since the Middle Ages, botanical explorers inspired by ancient accounts of this remarkable plant have sought it on three continents, and always in vain. Many historians view the disappearance of silphion as the first recorded extinction of any species, plant or animal, and a cautionary tale in how thoroughly human appetite can erase a species from the wild.
But is silphion truly extinct? Thanks to a lucky encounter almost 40 years ago, and decades of subsequent research, a professor at Istanbul University suspects he has re-discovered the last holdouts of the ancient plant more than a thousand years after it disappeared from history books, and nearly a thousand miles from where it once grew.
The root ball—the chemical factory of the plant—perfumed the air with a pleasant, slightly medicinal odor, halfway between eucalyptus and pine sap. “To me, the smell is stimulating, as well as relaxing,” Miski explained. “You can see why everybody who encounters this plant becomes attached to it.”
Miski’s hunch that Ferula drudeana would prove to be a chemical gold mine turned out to be correct: Analyses of the root extract identified 30 secondary metabolites—substances which, while they don’t contribute to the primary business of helping a plant grow or reproduce, nonetheless confer some kind of selective advantage. Among the compounds, many of which have cancer-fighting, contraceptive, and anti-inflammatory properties, is shyobunone, which acts on the brain’s benzodiazepine receptors and may contribute to the plant’s intoxicating smell. Miski believes that future analyses of the plant will reveal the existence of dozens of yet-to-be-identified compounds of medical interest.
“You find the same chemicals in rosemary, sweet flag, artichoke, sage, and galbanum, another Ferula plant,” the professor marvels. “It’s like you combined half a dozen important medicinal plants in a single species.”
