Ferula assa-foetida
species of plant
Ferula assa-foetida is a species of Ferula endemic to Southern Iran. It is a source of asafoetida, but not the main source, although many sources claim so. The production of asafoetida from this species is confined to Southern Iran, especially the area near Lar.
Outside its native range, other asafoetida-producing species are often misidentified as F. assa-foetida. For example, F. foetida is mistaken for F. assa-foetida in Flora of the U.S.S.R. and Flora of Pakistan. In a molecular phylogenetic study, all the plant samples of F. assa-foetida collected in Central Iran were not the true species, but F. alliacea and F. gabrielii or their close relatives instead. Chemical analyses of asafoetida samples obtained from local markets in Eastern Iran also showed that asafoetida-producing species there were F. lutensis, F. foetida, F. alliacea, etc., instead of F. assa-foetida.
F. pseudalliacea and F. rubricaulis are endemic to western and southwestern Iran and are sometimes considered conspecific with F. assa-foetida.
“Ferula assa-foetida” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Ferula, assa-foetida and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q111185. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ferula assa-foetida” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.