News Article Miracle Plant Used in Ancient Greece Rediscovered After 2,000 Years
https://greekreporter.com/2025/08/21/plant-ancient-greece-rediscovered/92
u/ThumYorky 4d ago
News like this comes out once every few years relating to different plants, and all the evidence seems circumstantial. Regardless, every headline is just as definitive as the last. Digging into the article it seems there is no definitive proof, just best conjecture.
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u/Gecko99 4d ago
There are multiple plants proposed as candidates for silphium. This species, Ferula drudeana, has been known to botanists since at least 1930. It does match ancient descriptions of the plant and its collection to extinction is plausible due to its habitat.
The evidence seems circumstantial.
- The plant is a member of a very diverse family.
- Sheep and goats like eating it, but they like eating all sorts of things. They have been raised in the area for thousands of years.
- It grows rapidly after heavy rain, up to six feet (2 meters) in a month.
- The volcano it was found on has unusual geology, and ancient people used that volcano as a source of obsidian.
- A mountain habitat is often associated with rare plants.
- It is difficult to cultivate, and requires the seeds to spend some time in cold temperatures. It is very interesting that Mahmut Miski was able to grow it in a greenhouse.
- It contains a variety of interesting chemicals, but that's true of many plants used for seasoning or medicine.
The plant's range is a factor against it being silphium. Libya is quite far from Mount Hasan. However, Greeks were known to be in the area, and they could have taken the seeds there. I wonder if the ancient Greeks could have used yakhchals to expose the seeds to cold, wet environments. These ice houses are known from neighboring Iran, but primarily in deserts quite far from Mt. Hasan.
Given the huge value the ancients placed on silphium, I wonder if a sample of it might be found preserved in some ancient rich person's tomb. A DNA analysis of such a sample could reveal if this is the real deal.
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u/justamiqote 4d ago
It is difficult to cultivate, and requires the seeds to spend some time in cold temperatures. It is very interesting that Mahmut Miski was able to grow it in a greenhouse
To be fair, that's not really all too uncommon. A lot of species need cold stratification to germinate
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u/SCP-Agent-Arad 4d ago edited 4d ago
Yeah, I’ve done it with Hercules' Club seeds Zanthoxylum clava-herculis.
Now fire responsive seeds…
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u/AltruisticLobster315 4d ago
Maybe it's unusual for a Mediterranean plant? I've really only propagated temperate plants from seeds, so I have no idea about Mediterranean ones.
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u/paulexcoff 4d ago edited 4d ago
This is article is a low quality ripoff of a bad Nat Geo article. This is not a new story and the story is garbage. If you look at phylogenies of Ferula all the closest relatives of F. drudeana are from Central Asia (Turkey/Iran/Afghanistan/Uzbekistan etc), not North Africa. This is just some random Ferula species that someone has decided they can try to spin a fantastical story around, but biogeographically it makes no sense.
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