As of 2015, Mandragora officinarum has three or four different circumscriptions (see Taxonomy below). The description below applies to a broad circumscription, used in a 1998 revision of the genus, in which the name is used for all the plants native to Mediterranean region.[1] Thus defined, Mandragora officinarum is a very variable perennial herbaceous plant with a long thick root, often branched. It has almost no stem, the leaves being borne in a basal rosette. The leaves are very variable in size and shape, with a maximum length of 45 cm (18 in). They are usually either elliptical in shape or wider towards the end (obovate), with varying degrees of hairiness.[1]
The flowers appear from autumn to spring (September to April). They are borne in the axils of the leaves. The flower stalks (pedicels) are also very variable in length, up to 45 cm (18 in) long. The five sepals are 6–28 mm (0.2–1.1 in) long, fused together at the base and then forming free lobes to about a half to two-thirds of their total length. The five petals are greenish white to pale blue or violet in colour, 12–65 mm (0.5–2.6 in) long, and, like the sepals, joined together at the base with free lobes at the end. The lobes are between half as long as the petals to almost as long. The five stamens are joined to the bases of the petals and vary in length from 7 to 15 mm (0.3 to 0.6 in). The anthers of the stamens are usually yellow or brown, but are sometimes pale blue.[1]
The fruit which forms in late autumn to early summer (November to June) is a berry, shaped like a globe or an ellipsoid (i.e. longer than wide), with a very variable diameter of 5–40 mm (0.2–1.6 in). When ripe, the fruit is glossy, and yellow to orange – somewhat resembling a small tomato. It contains yellow to light brown seeds, 2.5–6 mm (0.10–0.24 in) long.[1]
Earlier, a different circumscription was used, in which Mandragora officinarum referred only to plants found in northern Italy and part of the coast of former Yugoslavia, most Mediterranean mandrakes being placed in Mandragora autumnalis.[4][5] The description above would then apply to both species combined, with M. officinarum having greenish-white rather than violet petals, up to 25 mm (1 in) long rather than usually 30–40 mm (1.2–1.6 in) or longer, and a berry that is globose rather than ellipsoid.[4] More recently, plants native to the Levant have been separated out as Mandragora autumnalis, leaving those found in the rest of the Mediterranean area as M. officinarum. One difference then is that the size of the seeds of M. officinarum is less than half the size of those of M. autumnalis.[6]