This miracle plant was eaten into extinction 2,000 years ago—or was it?

2,000 years after a “cure-all” plant was thought to have been harvested to extinction during the Roman Empire, a Turkish researcher thinks he found it again, discovered accidentally on a farm full of sheep in rural Turkey.

Photographer Alice Zoo traveled to the plant, lending her ethereal aesthetic to this story full of mystery, discovery, and persistence. Photographing on film, Alice visited the site of the plant where it was rediscovered, and the efforts to propagate it once again. She also documented the works of food historian Sally Grainger, who traveled to Turkey, using ancient recipes to see if the plant thought to be Silphion bore a resemblance in taste. Botanical illustrator Nirupa Rao drew the plant, and George Selley collected the ambient video used throughout the piece.