Ferula asafoetida Seeds | Asafoetida

Ferula asafoetida in flower with broad yellow-green umbels on a stout stem — Asafoetida (*Ferula asafoetida*): Apiaceae, dry hills of Iran, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.

LATIN NAME: Ferula asafoetida

COMMON NAME: Asafoetida

Plant Profile

Asafoetida is a giant umbellifer of the carrot family, native to the dry hills of Iran, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, where it grows on stony, sun-baked ground. It spends four or five years building a thick, fleshy root and a rosette of finely divided, feathery leaves, then sends up a stout, hollow stem two to three metres tall, topped by broad umbels of small yellow-green flowers. The whole plant dies after setting seed, which is why the resin is harvested from the crown just before the stem bolts. Cut the root and a milky sap bleeds out, darkening in air to a brown, waxy mass with an aggressive smell of sulfur and garlic. That resin is the spice. The plant in leaf is architectural and unexpectedly elegant, with a blue-green cast and a strong umbel silhouette.

Science & Biotechnology

The smell comes from sulfur compounds, mostly 2-butyl propenyl disulfide and its relatives, released when the resin is cut or crushed and broken down in cooking into gentler, onion-like notes. The resin also carries ferulic acid esters, umbelliferone and sesquiterpenoid coumarins, and it is those that have kept the species in pharmacology for decades. Extracts show antifungal, anticoagulant and neuroprotective activity in laboratory models, and a body of work in India and Iran has looked at memory effects and at the plant’s place in the traditional medicine of both countries. Taxonomy is muddy: what the trade calls asafoetida may come from Ferula asafoetida, F. foetida or hybrids, and resin chemistry varies with source, which complicates any claim about a single species.

Uses & Benefits

In Indian cooking the resin is the standard substitute for onion and garlic among communities that avoid both, and a pinch fried in ghee is what gives dal and sambar their savoury depth. It is used in pickles, in fish curries and in the spiced buttermilk of the south. A little goes a long way: too much and the dish tastes of metal. Medicinally it has a long record as a carminative for wind and bloating, and as an expectorant in cough mixtures. In the garden it is a plant for a dry bank and a deep root run, grown for the strange, sculptural flowering. It is not a culinary herb to pick from the border; the resin is processed, not gathered casually.

Growing from Seed

Seed has a short life and should be sown in autumn, as fresh as possible. Use a gritty mix of loam, sand and compost, sow at the surface and cover with five millimetres of grit. Give the pot a cold, damp winter outdoors or in a fridge at four degrees for six weeks, then bring it to fifteen degrees. Germination is slow and often partial. The seedling makes a thin root and one or two feathery leaves in its first year and resents disturbance, so sow into a deep pot and plant out without breaking the root. Choose a sunny bank with sharp drainage and poor soil; rich ground produces leaf and no flower. Expect to wait four years for the first stem.

Our Take

Grow it for the architecture and the strange resin in its root, and be ready to wait four seasons for the one flower.

Herb Seeds