Ferula . The ferula grows in hot countries, such as Languedoc, Provence, Italy, Sicily, Spain, Greece, Africa, Tangiers, etc. It is cultivated in the gardens of some collectors. Fourteen or fifteen species have been identified, among which one must distinguish that of France and Italy from that of Greece, and the Greek ferula from that of Africa. [1]

Ferula communis is named giant fennel: Officinale ferula major, feu fœmina Plini (Boerhaave, Index alter Plantarum, 64. C. B. P. 148 Tournefort Institutiones Rei Herbariae, i.321). [2] Its roots are long, somewhat ramose, and robust. It grows a light, pithy stem to a height of seven or eight feet which is covered from the base upwards with large leaves dividing into an infinite number of strips. The leaves are of a dark, leaden green and their furrowed sheaths encircle the stem. The tip of the stem is covered with twigs supported by small leaves divided into several strips. The twigs bear umbels of flowers, each one composed of five small, yellowish petals supported by a fruit containing two flat seeds, each of which is half an inch long by four lines wide. [3]

It is the stem of this species of ferula, which grows in Italy, France, and Spain, along the Mediterranean coast, to which Martial was referring when he said that it was the sceptre of pedagogues, who used it to discipline pupils: ‘ferulæque tristes sceptra pædagogorum cessent’ ( Epigrams, book X), whence the word ‘ferula’ has been retained to designate the wooden or leather implement which is still used in schools. [4] Moreover, this probably explains why the word ‘narthex’ in liturgical parlance signified in the Eastern Church a place set apart from the main church, in which secondary penitents gathered and stood in penance: ‘Ibi stabant sub ferula ecclesiæ’. [5]

As the wood of the giant fennel is light but quite firm, authors relate that old people generally used them as walking sticks. According to Tristan’s Commentaire historique (i.46-7), in which there are several remarks of mixed value on the ferula, it was apparently given to Pluto, either to guide the dead or because Pluto was portrayed as an old man, but rather I suggest because he was the king of Hades, for as I state below the ferula was a sign of authority. [6] Pliny relates that donkeys eat this plant avidly and with impunity even though it is a poison to other beasts of burden ( Naturalis Historia, book IV). [7] However, the truth of this observation is not borne out by experience, at least not in Italy, and probably not in Greece.

This species of ferula is cultivated quite commonly in gardens where it thrives: when it is planted in good soil, it reaches a height of over twelve feet and divides into several broadly-spreading branches, causing it to choke and destroy adjacent plants. It dies back at the base in autumn but regrows in spring. It flowers in June and the seeds ripen in September.

The Greek ferula merits a place here: it is named Ferula glauco folio, caule crassissimo, ad singulos nodos ramoso & umbellifero by Tournefort ( Corollarium Institutionum Rei Herbariœ, p. 22). [8] It grows abundantly in the island of Skinosa, where according to Tournefort it has even conserved its old name among modern Greeks, who call it ‘nartheca’, from the literal Greek ‘narthex’. See Tournefort, Relation d’un voyage du Levant, volume I. [9]

Its stem is about five feet tall and three inches broad, with nodes spaced at intervals of ten inches. It branches at each node and is covered with a firm bark approximately two lines thick. [10] The hollow of this stem is filled with a white pith, which kindles like a match because it is quite dry. Fire is preserved there, and consumes the pith only gradually and without damaging the bark, which is why this plant is used to carry fire. This practice dates back to the beginning of antiquity and explains the passage from Martial in which ferulas are purported to say:

‘We illuminate through the beneficence of Prometheus.’

‘Clara, Promethei munere, ligna sumus.’ ( Epigrams, book XIV) [11]

The practice may also explain the passage in which Hesiod relates that the fire which Prometheus stole from the sky was borne away in a ferula: ‘in a hollow narthex stalk’ (verse 52). [12] The basis for this fable is probably that according to Diodorus Siculus Prometheus invented tinderbox steel with which, it is said, fire can be drawn from a pebble ( Bibliotheke Historike, book V). [13] Prometheus probably used the pith of the ferula as a match and taught men to conserve fire in the stems of this plant.

These stems are strong enough to lean on and too light to harm those struck by them. That is why Bacchus, one of the great legislators of antiquity, wisely ordered men who intended to drink wine to use walking sticks made from the ferula, because when they were inebriated they frequently broke each others’ heads with ordinary sticks (Plato, Phedon ). [14] Bacchus’ priests also used walking sticks made from the ferula, which was also the sceptre of emperors in the Lower empire, for it is almost certain that the square, flat-topped stem stamped on the medals of that time represents the ferula. It was in common use among the Greeks, who called their kings ‘porte-férules’, which means ‘ferula- bearers’.

The Greek ferula, which was formerly the symbol of a king’s authority and was employed with great skill, especially by cabinetmakers in the manufacture of precious objects, is now used as firewood in Puglia instead of other wood, and is used in Greece only for making footstools. The dry stems of this plant are laid lengthwise then breadthwise to form cubes secured at each corner with wooden pins. These cubes form the footstools of the noblewomen of Amorgos. How different are these footstools, M. de Tournefort observes, from the artefacts for which the ancients used the ferula! [15]

Plutarch and Strabo remark that Alexander the Great kept Homer’s works in a ferula casket: the ferula was used to form the body of the casket, which was then covered with a rich cloth or skin set off with sheets of gold, pearls, and precious stones. [16] The casket belonging to Alexander was priceless: he found it among the jewels of Darius, which fell into his hands. [17] Having examined it, he destined it according to Pliny to house Homer’s poems, in order for the greatest work of genius to be enclosed in the most precious casket. [18] Subsequently, the term ‘narthex’ was applied to any wood in which valuable ointments were stored. Lastly, ancient doctors gave this name to the substantial works which they composed on their art. I could support the above by many scholarly observations if this were the proper place, but I will refer the reader to Saumaise and move on to the Armenian ferula. [19]

The Armenian ferula, Ferula orientalis, cachryos folio & facie ( Corollarium Institutionum Rei Herbariœ, p. 22), is described by M. de Tournefort in his Relation d’un voyage du Levant, Volume III, letter 19, where he gives its structure. [20] The white, branching root is 2½ feet long and as broad as one’s arm: it is covered with a yellowish bark which produces secretions of the same colour. The stem grows up to three feet by half an inch broad: it is smooth, firm, reddish, full of white pith, and covered with leaves resembling those of the fennel, which are 1½ or two feet long and divided into strands as fine as those of the leaves of Morison’s Cachrys ferulœ folio, femine fungoso, lœvi, which this plant resembles so closely that without examining the seeds the plants could be easily confused. [21] The leaves on the stems are much shorter and are spaced at greater intervals: they each begin with a sheath three inches long by two inches wide, which is smooth, reddish, and terminates in a leaf of about two inches in length and as finely dissected as the others.

The top half of the stem bears several twigs from the leaf axils, which are seldom longer than a span, and support umbels of yellow flowers composed of at least five and up to seven or eight petals half a line long. [22] The seeds are quite similar to those of the ordinary ferula: they are about half an inch long by 2½ lines wide, and are slender towards the edges, reddish, finely furrowed on top, and oily.

Dioscorides and Pliny have attributed many properties to the ferulas of Greece and Italy: they have said, among other things, that the pith of this plant helps to cure the spitting of blood and cœliac flux, that its seed relieves colic and stimulates perspiration, and that its dried root cleanses ulcers and induces urination and menstruation. Our doctors have been cured of this humbug, probably once and for all.

The species of ferula in which medicine is uniquely interested today is that of Africa, Syria, Persia, and the East Indies, not because of the properties of the pith, root, leaves, or seeds, but because it is from this species that galbanum flows, trickles, drips, or is tapped. It is futile to tap the stems of other species of ferula: their secretions and the swellings which form naturally on the stems do not resemble this fatty, ductile, strong-smelling substance, which has some of the characteristics of gum and resin and is called galbanum. See Galbanum. [23]

Notes

1. ‘The Italian and French ferula differs from that of Greece’ (translated from Pitton de Tournefort, 1717, i.245). There are 172 species of Ferula . See D. J. Mabberley, The Plant-book: a Portable Dictionary of the Vascular Plants (Cambridge, 1997), 280.

2. Ferula communis was so-named by Linnaeus. ‘C. B. P.’ refers to the Pinax to Bauhin, 1623, which was published in the 1671 edition in four volumes.

3. That is, one third of an inch, or 8 mm.

4. ‘And the sad ferulas, sceptres of the pedagogues, cease’ (epigram 62). The Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martialis ( c. AD 40-103/4), or Martial, who was born in Spain, wrote Epigrams, which contained over 1,500 epigrams, in twelve books from AD 86- 101 (Howatson and Chilvers, 1996, pp. 334-5). Jaucourt’s source is Pitton de Tournefort, 1717, i.245.

5. ‘There they stood, under the narthex of the church’. This is the railed-off western portico or ante-nave intended for penitents, as well as for women and catechumens.

6. Tristan de Saint-Amant, 1635.

7. Jaucourt’s source is Pitton de Tournefort, 1717, i.245.

8. This work is an enlarged edition of Pitton de Tournefort, 1700, which was published in 1703, and incorporated the 1,356 new species which the author had discovered during his voyage to Europe and Asia Minor from 1700-1702 (Fontenelle, 1708).

9. Pitton de Tournefort, 1717, i.244. This is not Ferula narthex, which originates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but Ferula communis subspecies glauca.

10. That is, approximately 4 mm.

11. Epigram 80. Jaucourt’s source for the epigrams would appear to be Pitton de Tournefort, 1700, i.321.

12. The Greek poet Hesiod’s Theogony ( c. 700 BC ) describes the genealogy of the Greek gods: Zeus is purported to have deprived man of fire, and the Titan Prometheus is said to have stolen fire from the gods for man by carrying it away in the stem of a Greek ferula. The quotation is from Hesiod’s other extant poem, Works and Days, of which the ‘works’ describe the labours of the farming seasons, and the ‘days’ in each month which are ordained by Zeus to be lucky or unlucky for specific tasks. Here, the myth of Prometheus is used to illustrate the benefits of labour and justice (Howatson and Chilvers, 1996). Jaucourt’s source is Pitton de Tournefort, 1717, i.245.

13. Diodorus Siculus was a Sicilian Greek historian who composed a history of the world in forty books ( c. 60-30 BC ). Books IV-VI cover Greek and European mythology (Howatson and Chilvers, 1996, p. 181). Jaucourt’s source is Pitton de Tournefort, 1717, i.245.

14. Bacchus is the Latin name of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. The Greek philosopher Plato (427-347 BC ) represents Phaedrus in dialogue with Socrates (Howatson and Chilvers, 1996, pp. 412, 427). Jaucourt’s source is Pitton de Tournefort, 1717, i.245.

15. Ibid., p. 246.

16. Pitton de Tournefort, from whom this passage is taken, adds that Alexander the Great chose this wood because of its lightness. Strabo, who was born in 64 BC in Amasia, was the author of Geography in seventeen books, the authority of which Pitton de Tournefort’s voyage was in part meant to test (ibid.; Howatson and Chilvers, 1996, pp. 510-11; Grell, 1995).

17. Darius III Codomanus ( c. 380-30 BC ) was the Persian king who was defeated by Alexander the Great in 333 BC (Howatson and Chilvers, 1996, p. 160).

18. Alexander was introduced to Homer when a teenager by his tutor, Aristotle, who is purported to have prepared an edition of the Iliad for him. Modern editions of the Iliad and Odyssey are based on the editorial work of Alexandrian scholars (ibid., pp. 57, 276).

19. The Protestant humanist Claude de Saumaise (1588-1653) published eighty works, including an ambitious book on Solinus’s abridgement of Pliny’s Naturalis Historia. His knowledge of classical and oriental history helped to deepen his understanding of botany ( Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, 1842-65, xxxviii.51-2).

20. Pitton de Tournefort, 1717, ii.379-80. This species was named Ferula orientalis by Linnaeus.

21. This plant is Cachrys libanotis. It is recorded as Cachrys femine fungoso lœvi, foliis ferulaceis in Morison, 1672, p. 62. The Scottish author Robert Morison (1620-83) studied at Aberdeen and Angers, and became gardener to Gaston, duc d’Orléans at Blois from 1650-60, and visited many French provinces in order to look for new plants. He returned to London with the duke’s nephew, Charles II, upon the Restoration, and became the king’s physician, botanist, and superintendant of the royal gardens. In 1669, he became the first professor of botany at Oxford (Harris, pers. comm.; Desmond, 1977, p. 450; article ‘Morison, Robert’, George Simonds Boulger, in Stephen and Lee, 1885-1900).

22. A span is 22 cm or 9 inches.

23. Galbanum is derived from Ferula galbaniflua or gummosa, Ferula rubricaulis, and Ferula foetida. Ferula assa-foetida and Ferula narthex yield gum asafoetida, which is used in veterinary medicine and as a spice in Eastern cookery (Harris, pers. comm.). See D. J. Mabberley, The Plant-book: a Portable Dictionary of the Vascular Plants (Cambridge, 1997), 280.