ferula

The article compares it to asafoetida, which is visually similar and comes from the same genus ( Ferula ).

The best explanation I've heard is that it was a sterile hybrid of two Ferula species.

A self-declared Atheist is not a Catholic, no matter what any dude with a pallium or a ferula might have to say about it.

Ah the biannual ‘we’ve found silphium’ Several people have stumbled upon Ferula Drudeana in Turkey and remarked upon the similarities.

However, there seems to be some doubt whether this particular plant, Ferula drudeana, from Turkey, is the same plant or not.

Many Ferula have a long history of mythology behind them.

The Ferula genus contains fennel and asafoetida (aka hing).

Silphium certainly seems to have been a member of the (200+ strong) Ferula genus given their physical similarity to the plant depicted on ancient coins from Cyrene (in modern Libya).

I've looked into this a lot and I'd say the actual leading theory is that it's an infertile hybrid of two Ferula species that grew mostly in African Mediterranean.

Or he could want to maintain an herbarium because we need to assure that this is the only Ferula species in our breeding population, and this needs sampling the population and microscope.

The romans, who so valued Silphium, also sometimes used a different plant, Asafoetida as a cheaper alternative, so the properties of Silphium obviously weren't totally unique, and Ferula drudeana may well be very similar if not the exact same plant.

A 2021 paper made the case that Ferula drudeana, an endemic species found in Turkey, is the true identity of Silphium based on similarity of appearance and production of a resin with supposedly similar properties to Silphium.[16] However, this hypothesis has not, as of 2022, gained traction.

Ferula is in the same family as the carrot, but also is a distant relative of Hemlock and of the "Joker's plant".

From silphium wiki: "Theophrastus wrote in Enquiry into Plants that the type of Ferula specifically referred to as "silphium" was odd in that it could not be cultivated."

One of the few pieces of useful information I took out of scouting was the "universal edibility test"[1] -- I assume the professor did some version of it, probably abbreviated because just about everything else in Ferula is edible (at least in doses used for flavoring).

Silphium is most probably a big Apiaceae related with, or in the genus Ferula.

Ferula drudeana is suspected to be one of the species that was hybridized.

Ferula is not a rare genus in the Mediterranean and we are still discovering new species.