That's what I thought unfortunately, and doubly so because a few months ago I read something completely different on this—I unfortunately don't currently recall

That's what I thought unfortunately, and doubly so because a few months ago I read something completely different on this—I unfortunately don't currently recall where—where the hypothesis was that actually Silphion was a… I don't recall exactly anymore, but, something like, a special phenotype of an even more special naturally forming, infertile hybrid of two other plants which required very specific conditions to be able form grow, and that changes caused by the Romans to the local microclimate there made it go extinct. Actually, here's a paper which seems pretty darn close: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2021.785962/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcosc.2021.7859... I think it wasn't this paper, but probably someone's writing based upon that paper, and here's a quote from that paper, a quote which actually references the very same 2021 paper, which that natgeo article references: "The double-seeded schizocarp of F. drudeana is also consistent with silphium's own fruit. However, its foliage fails to share a resemblance with silphium's in both shape and structure (Miski, 2021)." Funny how Miski none-the-less claims that it's actual Silphion, despite (apparently) his own work (as referenced by the paper I linked) contradicting this. I haven't yet finished reading the natgeo piece[edit: by now, I have], but I'd suspect something like Miski probably having made some pharma discovery from this, patented it, a stealth mode startup behind it, and the natgeo article act as a fluff piece to—please pardon the pun—fluffer up venture capital investor interest. Or something like that. Could also just be a case of stupidity and sensationalistismic[sic] sensation-greed, i.e. Hanlon's razor, &c. Also, here's the Twitter thread, by the NatGeo article author, for the NatGeo article, and that thread doesn't make me any less suspicious (albeit also not more suspicious): https://twitter.com/lostsupper/status/1573296595860332546 https://twitter.com/lostsupper/status/1573296595860332546 Edit: Now if only I'd re-find that piece on the formation of this. Given what the NatGeo piece mentions about Greeks having possibly moved seeds from North Africa to Anatolia, perhaps F. drudeana makes for half of what we'd need to bring Silphion back!