Silphium
This article covers the extinct plant called Silphium; for the modern Silphium genus, see rosinweed.
Silphium (also known as silphion or laser) was a plant of the genus Ferula. Generally considered to be an extinct "giant fennel" (although some claim that the plant is really Ferula tingitana), it once formed the crux of trade from the ancient city of Cyrene for its use as a rich seasoning and as a medicine. It was so critical to the Cyrenian economy that most of their coins bore a picture of the plant (illustration, right).
Aside from its uses in Greco-Roman cooking (as in recipes by Apicius), many medical uses were ascribed to the plant. It was said that it could be used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies. Chiefly among its medical uses, according to Pliny the Elder, was its role as a herbal contraceptive. Given that many species in the parsley family have estrogenic properties, and some (such as Wild carrot) have been found to work as an abortifacient, it is quite possible that this particular use may well have had merit.
The plant grew along a narrow coastal area, about 125 by 35 miles, in Cyrenaica (in present-day Libya). Legend said that it was a gift from the god Apollo. It was used widely by most ancient Mediterranean cultures; the Romans considered it "worth its weight in denarii." Speculation abounds as to the cause of its extinction; much of it rests on a sudden demand for animals who had grazed on the plant, for some supposed effect on the quality of the meat. Overgrazing combined with overharvesting likely led to its extinction. The climate of the maghreb has been drying over the millennia, and desertification may also have been a factor.
There has been some speculation about the connection between silphium and the traditional heart shape. The Catholic Church claims that the symbol of the heart began in the 1600s when Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque had a vision of a heart shape inside a crown of thorns. However, the symbol is present in stained glass works from far earlier than that. The symbol is remarkably similar to the Egyptian "heart soul" (ab). The sexual nature of that concept, combined with the widespread use of silphium in ancient Egypt for birth control, and the fact that the seeds of silphium are shaped like a heart, leads to speculation that the character for ab may have been derived from the shape of the silphium seed.
