Silphium was a plant so popular in the ancient world, that many believe it was farmed into extinction.
Why was it so popular? Here's the break-down, courtesy of Wikipedia:
Aside from its uses in Greco-Roman cooking (as in recipes by Apicius), many medical uses were ascribed to the plant. It was said that it could be used to treat cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies. Chief among its medical uses, according to Pliny the Elder, was its role as an herbal contraceptive.
Interestingly, there's a probable link between its use as a contraceptive and contemporaneous depictions of the plant's seed/fruit:
There has been some speculation about the connection between silphium and the traditional heart shape (♥). The symbol is remarkably similar to the Egyptian "heart soul" (ib). The sexual nature of that concept, combined with the widespread use of silphium in ancient Egypt for birth control, and the fact that the seeds of silphium are shaped like a heart as shown in the left illustration, leads to speculation that the character for ib may have been derived from the shape of the silphium seed.
Here's the illustration in question:
Uncanny, isn't it?
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