So thing 1: silphium was an abortofacient, not a hormonal control agent. There's plenty o'abortofacients out there and all of them are beaten by modern pharmacology. That said:

Analyses of the root extract identified 30 secondary metabolites—substances which, while they don’t contribute to the primary business of helping a plant grow or reproduce, nonetheless confer some kind of selective advantage. Among the compounds, many of which have cancer-fighting, contraceptive, and anti-inflammatory properties, is shyobunone, which acts on the brain’s benzodiazepine receptors and may contribute to the plant’s intoxicating smell.

You are talking about a plant that, if it's the one, is our most likely candidate for the original panacea. The Minoans and Egyptians had their own glyphs for silphium. It was the basic medicine for the entire Mediterranean from 3500BC until like 60 CE.

And again, IF (big if) Ferula wtfever has the makings of all the stuff the Minoans, Greeks, Romans, Cyreneans and everybody else used it for? It could be awesome or it could be a nothingburger.

I think it's more interesting that cuisine went from "zomg gotta have this herb that we make three different ways" to "sure substitute this stuff the locals call 'devil's dung' it'll have to do". It's like going from saffron to dandelions, if saffron root was something kings cooked with.

"The Cyrenaic kind, even if one just tastes it, at once arouses a humour throughout the body and has a very healthy aroma, so that it is not noticed on the breath, or only a little; but the Median [Iranian] is weaker in power and has a nastier smell."

Dioscorides