History of saffron
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Human cultivation and use of saffron spans more than 3,500 years and extends across cultures, continents, and civilizations. Saffron, a spice derived from the dried stigmas of the saffron crocus, has through history remained among the world's most costly substances. With its bitter taste, hay-like fragrance, and slight metallic notes, the apocarotenoid-rich saffron has been used as a seasoning, fragrance, dye, and medicine.
Saffron crocus flowers, represented as small red tufts, are gathered by two women in a fragmentary Minoan fresco from the excavation of Akrotiri on the Aegean island of Santorini.
This inaccurate reconstruction of a Minoan fresco from Knossos in Crete depicts a man, which should be a monkey, gathering the crocus harvest.
Safranbolu, Turkey.
A field of saffron crocuses in Iran
Crocus sativus
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Crocus sativus, commonly known as saffron crocus or autumn crocus, is a species of flowering plant in the iris family Iridaceae. A cormous autumn-flowering cultivated perennial, unknown in the wild, it is best known for the culinary use of its floral stigmas as the spice saffron. Human cultivation of saffron crocus and the trade and use of saffron have endured for more than 3,500 years and span different cultures, continents, and civilizations.
Illustration from Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen (1897)
Flower's profile, Serra de Casteltallat, Catalonia, Spain
Pollen, Afghanistan