Mandrake
A poisonous root of the nightshade family whose human shape fed legends of a scream and a magical power.
Also: Mandragora, mandragora officinarum, alraune, dudaim
Mandrake, Mandragora officinarum, is a plant of the Mediterranean with a thick forked root that sometimes resembles a human body. The Hebrew Bible mentions dudaim, often taken to be mandrakes, in a story of Rachel and Leah in Genesis, and the plant was linked to fertility. Roman and medieval herbals added a legend: the plant shrieked when uprooted, and the sound could kill. German folklore made a root-figure called the alraun, kept as a house charm. At her trial in 1431, Joan of Arc was asked whether she carried one. The plant contains alkaloids, and is poisonous, and no one should treat the roots as medicine. Many medieval remedies and charms were sold using fake roots shaped from bryony.