the asphodèle plant owes its celebrity to the fact that, according to Homère, it grew into Champs-Elysées and that, in the ‘asphodèle meadow’, the deceased heroes were buried. The article deals with the asphodèle from a botanical point of view. It is a plant with bulky roots and a stem similar to that of poireau, and is described in the botanical writing of the Greek Dioscoride and Theophraste and the Latin Pline. Its names are numerous and reviewed. Abundant references are provided for each of them. The etymology of the word ‘asphodelos’ is mysterious and its presence in Homère goes unnoticed in botanists.