Mandrake is a member of the potato, tobacco and deadly nightshade family, so it is hardly surprising that like these it possesses narcotic attributes. Unlike them, however, it grows live sugar beet, having a tap root with a tuft of crinkled leaves about 30 cm (1 ft) long. The root can be enormous, as I found in 1985 when I tried to dig one up with a pick and spade, helped by a group of students. Together we made a hole about 1 m (3 ft) deep and 1.5 m (4y2 ft) across, and still we failed to reach the tips of the several branches of the tap root (pl 6).
During the autumn or winter months, pale purple flowers crowd the centre of the rosette. By spring a cluster of rounded or pear-shaped fruits about 2 cm (1 in) long appears, and as the fruits ripen, they turn uniform yellow and soft beneath the thin skin. The flesh has a characteristic sweet smell and is said to be edible - but it may also be narcotic and hallucinogenic. The fruit is very similar in shape to that of persea, but whereas persea has smaller reflexed sepals, the mandrake has a distinct calyx covering the lower part of the fruit. This feature should make it distinguishable from persea in murals and other art forms, but this is not always possible. Mandrake-like fruits found in excavations or tombs have always proved to be of persea; mandrake fruits themselves have yet to be seen. Representations of the mandrake plant and its fruits are frequent in Tutankhamun’s tomb, as well as in others of the 18 th Dynasty onwards. Scenes of gardens elsewhere often depict it growing as a cultivated plant: it has never been a native Egyptian species, since it needs a Mediterranean type of climate with winter rainfall.
World History
