My personal cold take is that it's a forgotten aloe species/hybrid -has weird succulent morphology as depicted in coinage Eg https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/

My personal cold take is that it's a forgotten aloe species/hybrid -has weird succulent morphology as depicted in coinage Eg https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/75379-Aloe-maculata https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/75379-Aloe-maculata -species that grow well (only) in the relevant regions in North Africa -sap much less sulfurous than hing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aloin -Pliny mentions silphium as laxative/purgative -Most of all, explains why the leading theory is still so unsatisfactory