The Legendary Silphium

A coin from Cyrene (present day Lybia), representing the silphium, a plant of the Apiaceae family (the same of coriander, fennel, parsley, etc ...) which was extinct in the first century A.D..

Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, said that the last branch of it was offered to the Emperor Nero. This is probably the first historical record of a plant’s extinction.
The silphium was used as a condiment and also as a contraceptive.
In the nineteenth century, the French Academy of Sciences sent a mission to Libya in search of the legendary silphium, but without any results.
Some authors believe that silphium is asafoetida (Ferula assa-foetida) and, as such, it is not extinct, but it is likely that it was indeed a distinct species (comparing the pictorial records left in coins with the current asafoetida plant).