#silphium

[unbfacts]

Romans loved a plant called silphium so much that they likely used it into extinction about 2,000 years ago. Many historians consider it history’s first recorded human-caused plant extinction.

[wintercorrybriea2]

silphium fall 2026

[l0calcatz]

After the nativity of Her child Ninush, the goddess Sylvian laid the newborn god upon a bed of flowers, blessing them with her love. It is said that Her grace bestowed upon the blooms a fraction of Her extraordinary powers, giving them Her name - "Sylvium".

Mankind had availed themselves of this flower for as long as we have existed, for it had found many uses in our hands, such as the making of medicine, perfumes, philtres, or even delicious meals. But as great civilizations formed, their demand for this illustrious plant grew to such heights that the supply slowly but surely ran dry, just as the old gods left this world.

Some say that Silphium, as people had come to know the flower in the age of the new gods, can still be found in places forgotten by humanity, where the powers of the old gods remain strong.

[grrlmusic]

SILPHIUM

[gwydpolls]

Time Travel Question 52: Medievalish and Earlier

If you could travel through time, but only to see something for Research or for Fun, not to change anything, what would you pick? Yes, you may have a Babel Fish in your ear to translate.

Survey of Passenger Pigeon Behavior and Migration circa 1400.

Survey of Late Pleistocene Moa Species and Behavior in Aotearoa.

Survey of Haast's Eagle Behavior and Māori belief around them when they lived.

Foods using Silphium across time and cultures.

Survey of Cucuteni–Trypillia Culture and Disease across space and time.

Meet the bronze age teen buried in Kazakhstan with her bone dice when alive.

The first Spinner

The person invented weaving

The Homin who figured out how to use ochre

Early human dyeing tenchinques

The first garment ever sewn

The first woven garment ever made

Voting ended onJul 16, 2024

These Questions are the result of suggestions a the previous iteration. This category may include suggestions made too late to fall into the correct earlier time grouping. In some cases a culture lasted a really long time and I grouped them by whether it was likely the later or earlier grouping made the most sense with the information I had.

Please add new suggestions below if you have them for future consideration. All cultures and time periods welcome.

We already did the burnings which lost their bracket, but the culture lasted a long time across a big area, and people keep suggesting it.

[fiercefauna]

Wild Silphium!

I originally was drawing reeds to go with @ironymobile ‘s character and got - really, really, carried away. This has got to be one of my more successful attempts at foliage, like ever. While I imagined some kind of connection between Irony’s Caladrius and the legendary lost herb, (perhaps they played a role in growing it) an attempt to write about it lead me down a different path entirely. (I may be posting that too, lol. But it didn’t go too well with this image.)

Silphium appears to have been a real plant, but had yellow flowers and a different stem structure than my own version. It was used by the Romans for various purposes from a cure-all medicine to a flavoring for food. This leads me to believe its effect on diseases may have been minimal, and then was exaggerated after what appears to have been its extinction. But who knows, could still be out there somewhere. It’s often assumed to be some kind of giant fennel, and I’ve had a recent obsession with fennel because of Spring and my desire to grow some of it.

[faguscarolinensis]

Silphium perfoliatum / Cup Plant at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University in Durham, NC

[antimony-ore]

© Thomas Payne

There is exactly one account of Ferula drudeana on iNaturalist, but it's up for debate whether or not it's just Ferula communis lol