Unfortunately, the interior of Arabia is almost unknown. Forskal, who has visited the coasts of Yemen has learnt nothing about the carthamine; nor is it mentioned among the plants of Botta and of Bové. But an Arab, Abu Anifa, quoted by Ebn Baithar, a thirteenth-century writer, expressed himself as follows:[804]—“Usfur, this plant furnishes a substance used as a dye; there are two kinds, one cultivated and one wild, which both grow in Arabia, of which the seeds are called elkurthum.” Abu Anifa was very likely right.
Saffron—Crocus sativus, Linnæus.
The saffron was cultivated in very early times in the west of Asia. The Romans praised the saffron of Cilicia, which they preferred to that grown in Italy.[805] Asia Minor, Persia, and Kashmir have been for a long time the countries which export the most. India gets it from Kashmir[806] at the present day. Roxburgh and Wallich do not mention it in their works. The two Sanskrit names mentioned by Piddington[807] probably applied to the substance saffron brought from the West, for the name kasmirajamma appears to indicate its origin in Kashmir. The other name is kunkuma. The Hebrew word karkom is commonly translated saffron, but it more probably applies to carthamine, to judge from the name of the latter in Arabic.[808] Besides, the saffron is not cultivated in Egypt or in Arabia. The Greek name is krokos.[809] Saffron, which recurs in all modern European languages, comes from the Arabic sahafaran,[810] zafran.[811] The Spaniards, nearer to the Arabs, call it azafran. The Arabic name itself comes from assfar, yellow.
Trustworthy authors say that C. sativus is wild in Greece[812] and in the Abruzzi mountains in Italy.[813] Maw, who is preparing a monograph of the genus Crocus, based on a long series of observations in gardens and in herbaria, connects with C. sativus six forms which are found wild in mountainous districts from Italy to Kurdistan. None of these, he says,[814] are identical with the cultivated variety; but certain forms described under other names (C. Orisnii, C. Cartwrightianus, C. Thomasii), hardly differ from it. These are from Italy and Greece.
The cultivation of saffron, of which the conditions are given in the Cours d’Agriculture by Gasparin, and in the Bulletin de la Société d’Acclimatation for 1870, is becoming more and more rare in Europe and Asia.[815] It has sometimes had the effect of naturalizing the species for a few years at least in localities where it appears to be wild.
CHAPTER IV.
PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS.[816]
Sweet Sop, Sugar Apple[817]—Anona squamosa, Linnæus. (In British India, Custard Apple; but this is the name of Anona muricata in America.)