silphium

IPA: sɪɫfiʌm

(historical) A plant, thought to be extinct, used in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome in cooking and as a contraceptive.

Examples of "silphium" in Sentences

The image on the coin is of a silphium seed.
The town even stamped a stalk of silphium on its coinage.
Most notable for this use is the extinct giant fennel, silphium.
laserpicium A substance obtained from a north African shrub called silphium.
Some argue that the silphium seed pod, which is heart shaped, is where the design came from but the truth is lost in antiquity.
Wikipedia reports that the seed of the silphium plant, used in ancient times as an herbal contraceptive, might be the source of the heart symbol.
Cyrene was famous for its horses and export of the valuable but pungent plant silphium, used in seasoning and many medicines, including contraceptives.
Further, Persia produced a coarse kind of silphium or assafoetida; it was famous for its walnuts, which were distinguished by the epithet of "royal"; and it supplied to the pharmacopeia of Greece and Rome a certain number of herbs.