Magical plant used for birth control by Romans and Greeks found 2,000 years after going extinct

A plant believed to have gone extinct 2,000 years ago has been rediscovered in Turkey. Silphium was a miracle plant used by Ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians to cure several diseases, and even for contraception. The golden-flowered plant was found by a professor in two places in Turkey. The silphion, or silphium, was one of the most popular plants in the Mediterranean thousands of years ago.

The flowers on the plant held immense value for human health and were used in several ways. People in ancient times crushed it to extract the juices for medicinal purposes. The flower was even cooked in multiple ways. Apparently, the same flower could also act as a birth control method.

Stories about the magical plant silphium

Records show that when Julius Caesar ruled, the silphium had the same price as silver. His workers stocked more than a thousand kilos of the plant alongside gold in the treasury. This is how valuable the plant was in Rome. The first documentation of the plant shows that it grew along the coast of Cyrenaica, or modern-day Libya. However, just seven centuries later, it vanished from the Mediterranean.

In the first century AD, "just one stalk" of the plant was found, according to Roman chronicler Pliny the Elder, who wrote about it in Natural History, the last documented account of the silphion. The stalk was given to Emperor Nero, he wrote.

Explorers did not find the silphium

The stories about the magical plant intrigued future explorers who searched for it in the Middle Ages on three continents. But no one ever found it, in what is believed to be the first record of a plant, animal or species going extinct. Slowly, stories about it died down. But now a researcher at Istanbul University claims it is still present on Earth, albeit thousands of kilometres from its original location.

Ferula Drudeana plant in Turkey could be same as silphium

Mahmut Miski thinks that the Ferula Drudeana that grows on Mount Hasan is the same ancient plant with magical medicinal properties. He says it is similar to what the ancient texts say about the silphion and the photos on Ancient Greek coins. The thick branching root and yellow flowers are the same, Miski says. Ferula Drudeana has anticancer compounds and anti-inflammatory properties, and belongs to the same family as carrots, fennel, and parsley.

Miski says he first saw it on Mount Hassan during postdoctoral research. He noted that it has thirty secondary metabolites that have medical purposes, including cancer-fighting, contraceptive, and anti-inflammatory properties. People on the mountain told him that sheep and goats love grazing on them, which was also true of the ancient silphion.