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Julius Caesar reportedly kept a stockpile of it in the Roman treasury. Emperor Nero is said to have owned the very last stalk of it. And yet today, not a single living specimen exists anywhere on Earth. The plant is called silphium, and its story is one of ancient history's most captivating mysteries.

Silphium grew wild only along the north coast of modern-day Libya and stubbornly refused to be cultivated by human hands. The Greeks and Romans prized it above almost everything else, using it as a contraceptive, an abortifacient, a medicine, a food seasoning, a perfume ingredient, and even a livestock improver. Its resin, extracted from the roots and stems and preserved in flour for long-distance trade, was so valuable that it appeared on coins and was treated as a state-controlled resource.

Ancient medical texts, including a four-volume gynecology treatise by the physician Soranus of Ephesus, describe how silphium mixed with wine could be taken orally to prevent conception. As a food, it was categorized as a warming, clearing herb believed to remove internal obstructions and prevent pregnancy depending on when it was consumed. The heart-shaped seed pods depicted in ancient art may even be the origin of the heart symbol we associate with love today.

Because it could not be farmed, supply was always finite and demand was relentless. Climate change, the desertification of North Africa, deliberate vandalism by local populations resentful of state control, and overgrazing by livestock are all believed to have contributed to its extinction by around the 1st century CE. A giant fennel species discovered in Turkey in 2021, Ferula drudeana, bears a striking resemblance to ancient depictions of silphium, and may be a surviving relative, but the mystery remains officially unsolved.

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