Around 2700 years ago, migrants from the Greek islands settled the North African coast and discovered a valuable natural resource, #Silphium (aka laser, laser wort)that became highly valued by the Greeks and Romans as a luxury spice.

Silphium grew only in a small area near Cyrene, a Graeco-Roman city whose impressive ruins may be seen today near Shahhat, Libya. It attained commercial importance such that the silphium emblem was stamped on the local coinage. While demand grew, attempts to farm Silphium proved problematic even in its native. By the end of the millennium Silphium had vanished altogether, either from unsustainable farming or desertification.

Botanicaldescriptions have come to us from Theophrastus, acolleague of Aristotle, who described Silphium as having thick roots covered in black bark and a stalksimilar to fennel and celery. Most likely Silphium was a species of Ferula, a genusin the Apiaceae/Umbelliferae family that also includes carrot, celery, angelicaand parsley.

“Silphium” is also used as a genus name for North American rosinweeds of the sunflowertribe. This causes confusion; indeed our cover illustration shows both the umbrella-like flowers of putative ancient silphia and the wider-petaled rosinweed flowers.

The famed Silphium of yore was known both as aphrodisiac and contraceptive, also able to induce abortion (like other Apiaceae). It probably bore a close relationship to asafoetida, and so probably had phytochemicals that include ferulic and other phenolic acids, sesquiterpenes and aromatic sulphurous molecules.

Asafoetida acts pharmacologically as a relaxant, neuroprotectant and inducer of digestive enzymes. It also reverses skin cell death. Silphium very likely had the same activities. Asafoetida is also known colloquially as “Devil’s Dung”, so it is highly likely that Silphium smelled a lot more pleasant

#Apiaceae #Asafoetida #Asafetida#Ferula #Silphium

Further reading

• Zaria Gorvett (2017). "The mystery of the lost Roman herb". BBC.  https://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170907-the-mystery-of-the-lost-roman-herb

• Briggs L & Jakobsson J. (2022). Searching for silphium: an updated review. Heritage, 5(2), 936-955. https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage5020051

• Amalraj, A., & Gopi, S. (2016). Biological activities and medicinalproperties of Asafoetida: A review. Journal of traditional and complementary medicine, 7(3), 347–359.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtcme.2016.11.004

• Moghadam FH et al (2017). Effects of Oleo Gum Resin of Ferulaassa-foetida L. on Senescence in Human Dermal Fibroblasts: -Asafoetida reverses senescence in fibroblasts. Journal of pharmacopuncture, 20(3), 213–219.https://doi.org/10.3831/KPI.2017.20.025

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