Indeed, the Romans loved it so much, they referenced their darling herb in poems and songs, and wrote it into great works of literature. For centuries, local kings held a monopoly on the plant, which made the city of Cyrene, at modern Shahhat, Libya, the richest in Africa. Before they gave it away to the Romans, the Greek inhabitants even put it on their money. Julius Caesar went so far as to store a cache (1,500lbs or 680kg) in the official treasury.

But today, silphium has vanished – possibly just from the region, possibly from our planet altogether. Pliny wrote that within his lifetime, only a single stalk was discovered. It was plucked and sent to the emperor Nero as a curiosity sometime around 54-68AD.
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Well I don’t believe it’s extinct, I believe it’s out there, in the wild, gone feral but still retaining all it’s powers over coughs, colds and sore holes.

Interesting to read the Wikipedia page about Silphium
I like this quote- K. Parejko, writing on it’s possible extinction, concludes that “because we cannot even accurately identify the plant we cannot know for certain whether it is extinct.”

It is speculated to be in the Apiaceae family, which has lots of very interesting and useful plants, like carrots and parsley and some of my favourite herbs. Australia has some lovely plants in this family….like flannel flower, and the very wacky Eryngium ovinum which I only recently learnt about. A bit of delving into other Eryngium species gave me this gem- ‘Cultures worldwide have used Eryngium extracts as anti-inflammatory agents. Eryngium yields an essential oil and contains many kinds of terpenoids, saponins, flavonoids, coumarins, and steroids.’

So I reckon if you want some wild feral things for coughs, colds and sore holes, even though the world may not have Silphium, there are some interesting Apiaceae that rabid hippies could be touting.

Thanks. Interesting, especially the link to asafoetida.

“Another plant, asafoetida, was used as a cheaper substitute for silphium, and had similar enough qualities that Romans, including the geographer Strabo, used the same word to describe both.”