The dreaded mandrake

Mandrakes Mandragora officinarum, are flowering plants that belong to the nightshade family. Because mandrakes contains deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids such as atropine, scopolamine, apoatropine, hyoscyamine and the roots sometimes contain bifurcations causing them to resemble human figures, their roots have long been used in magic rituals. Mandrakes grow in southern Europe, the Levant and North Africa.

According to the legend, when the root is dug up it screams and kills or renders deaf all who hear it. The literature includes many complex directions for harvesting a mandrake root in relative safety. For example Josephus (c. AD 37 to c. 100) gives the following directions for pulling it up:

"A furrow must be dug around the root until its lower part is exposed, then a dog is tied to it, after which the person tying the dog must get away. The dog then endeavours to follow him, and so easily pulls up the root, but dies suddenly instead of his master. After this the root can be handled without fear."

You probably don't want to know this, but It was a common folklore in some countries that mandrake would only grow where the semen of a hanged man had dripped on to the ground.

What an interesting plant!