Did you know:

• Mandrake – Mandragora officinarum –  was historically known as Satan’s Apple.
• The roots and leaves are highly toxic.  They result in coma and asphyxiation.
• If ingested in large doses, mandrake causes delirium, madness, and death.
• Its thin tuberous roots look like parsnips.  Ancient Greek and Roman physicians offered patients pieces of root to chew on before surgery because it acted as an early anesthetic.
• This plant grows best on poor, sandy soil in full sunlight.
• The greenish-yellow (sometimes purple) flowers are followed by round, orange seed pods.
• Because mandrake has a narcotic, hallucinogenic, hypnotic effect, it has been aligned with Black Magic and mystical rites since the Dark Ages.
• Also, the roots often resemble human figures.
• Anyone who digs up a mandrake root is supposedly condemned to Hell, so animals were usually used to harvest it instead.
• Legend claims that the mandrake root screams when it is pulled from the soil, and that anyone hearing this cry will instantly die.  This explains Shakespeare’s reference in King Henry VI, Part 1: “Would curses kill, as doth the Mandrake’s groan.”

Sources:

Grieve, M.  “Mandrake” at https://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/m/mandra10.html

Medieval Bestiary, “Mandrake” at http://bestiary.ca/beasts/beast1098.htm

Stuart, Malcolm. The Encyclopedia of Herbs and Herbalism (London: Black Cat, 1987)

Wikipedia, “Mandrake” at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandrake

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