Episode 32: Sacred Symbols & Extinct Exports - Silphium
A plant similar to Silphium
Hello and welcome back to another week of Rooted! This week I’m back with a plant you may have heard about, but I know you’ve never seen! Mostly because it went extinct a few thousand years ago, with its last known harvest being clocked in around 68 AD..
For my plant history nerds, you might have already pieced it together, but this week we are talking about the first plant in recorded human history to go extinct- Silphium!
We have records of silphium (obviously) but because it’s now extinct we don’t have nearly as many details as we normally would about how it grew, or exactly what it looked like. And because it went extinct before we had developed our modern naming conventions and classifications for plants, it doesn't have some of those bits i would normally share with you…but here’s what we DO know
Silphium, also known as laser wort, was believed to be a member of what is now the umbelliferae family- with famous cousins like dill, fennel, caraway, carrots, and hemlock! Unlike those more famous family members, Silphium is thought to have been quite large, with some accounts explaining that it stood approximately 5 feet tall, with thick hollow stalks, celery-like leaves and golden blooms. What set silphium apart, however, were it’s roots, which were covered in a thick black bark, and contained a valuable resin that was used in everything from medicine making to food preservation..
It was only able to grow in a very specific part of the mediterranean region of north africa. It’s rarity and usefulness is ultimately what made it so valuable. It was so widely loved in fact, that ancient Egyptians had specific hieroglyphs for it, and ancient Romans believed it had actually been sent from the heavens as a gift from apollo. People held it in such high regard, that the people in the region where silphium grew in actually had it printed on their currency- lest you forget how valuable their prized crop was. That coin is one of the only known images we have of the plant- I’ll have that posted to our social media accounts and in the blog if you want to see it for yourself!
Needless to say, people were STOKED about Silphium- and for good reason- it was reported to have SO. MANY. USES.
In medicine, Laser wort was used to treat pretty much any ailment under the sun…. Upset stomach? Not a Problem. Aches and pains? A thing of the past! Unsightly goiters got you down? Not any more! Libito lacking? Laser wort cured it all
But it wasn't just a powerful medicine. It was also used as a very pungent spice, or even eaten raw dipped in vinegar. One ancient Roman culinary expert shared that he liked to actually store pine nuts in with his laser wort- that way they would absorb the flavor and he could grate those into his dishes- stretching his budget a few hundred dollars while still adding that now-extinct flavor.
On top of being a tasty snack and spice, Silphium was also used to preserve crops like lentils that could otherwise grow mold if not stored properly.
All of those uses were mostly derived from the resin we talked about earlier… but the other parts of the plant still had PLENTY of uses. For starters, the stalks and leaves were left in the fields for cows and goats to munch to their heart's content. And those golden flowers were commonly used in perfume, designed to quite literally rub your opulence and wealth into everyone’s noses.
Silphium also is believed to have brought us one of the most iconic symbols of modern day- which is shocking given how little we talk about it! As it turns out, the records we have indicate that the seeds silphium produced look EXACTLY like the hearts we use today to symbolize love…I know some records say they are actually butts, and I like that theory too, but this is a plant podcast, so we have to at least dive into how we got to this seed theory.
In Greek folklore there is a story of a Spartan who had a beautiful daughter. One day, the Dioscuri (two half brothers named Castor and Pollux who caused quite a stir everywhere they went) came to visit the man and his daughter. The spartan, having no reason to distrust the two brothers, sent his daughter to bed, then turned in for the night himself. In the morning, his daughter and all of her worldly possessions were gone, and in her place was a single silphium plant and a million boy-band esque scribblings of the Dioscuri…diabolical indeed.
If that weren't enough, there is also mention of Silphium in the roman poem Catullus/7 which roughly translated reads “
you ask how many kissings
Of yours, Lesbia, would be enough and more for me
As great as the number of Libyan sands
That lie in lasarpicium bearing cyrene
Between the oracle of sweltering jupiter
And the sacred tomb of old Battus
Or as many as the stars that when the night is silent
See people’s secret love affairs
For you to kiss so many kisses
And which inquiring men could not count completely
Nor an evil tongue bewitch
Basically Catullus is quite smitten with his lover, and feels that even if she kissed him once for every silphium seed STILL wouldn’t be enough..
But they weren’t just used as a symbol of love, people REALLY loved them…so much so in fact that they kind of sort of smothered them….
Which leads us to the next part of our story- how exactly did these guys go extinct?
Well, we don’t know for sure, but we have some working theories about what probably happened here…
The first, and by far most commonly accepted answer is that they were simply overharvested.
To understand how we got here, it’s important to note a few things
People had one HECK of a time trying to grow these bad boys. While they produced plenty of seeds, no one could ever get them to germinate and develop full plants, which made them nearly impossible to farm on any meaningful scale
While there was some success in propagation, the resulting plants were just clones of the existing plants, which didn’t bode well for raising strong or resilient crops.
These guys were SUPER picky about their soil- just like huckleberries- they simply will not grow in soil that doesn’t suit them.
Some scholars believe that this plant actually COULDN'T be grown by seed, or grown outside of it’s region because it was actually a hybrid of two different giant fennels that are commonly found growing in that region
With all of that in mind, it’s easy to understand why overharvesting could quickly get out of hand.
To try and prevent losing the plant entirely, the Greeks put strict limits and policies in place in an attempt to help the plant keep up with demand. However, the Romans didn’t really care about all that, and by 68 AD they had actually harvested the last known Silphium plant for Nemo- you can learn more about him in the leek episode!
While we do have a rich history for this plant, there is still a LOT we don’t know- and will likely never know about this ancient miracle. However,in 2021 researchers have discovered a different plant, Ferula drudeana that they believe COULD be Silphium due to the bark-covered roots, resin, and overall similarity in description, function, and location (it’s endemic to Turkey!) - the only trouble is that without a tissue sample, we’ll never be able to know for sure…
That’s all I've got for this week, but I'll be back next week with another fascinating floral fable for you…we’ll be staying in Africa, and talking about a plant that caused QUITE the ordeal…see you then!
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