Saffron consists of the dried stigmas of the flowers of the Saffron Crocus (Crocus sativus). It is used as a colouring material for some articles of food and medicinal tinctures. Formerly it was employed for dyeing fabrics yellow, and, to a slight extent, is so still in some countries. In Persia it is much consumed as a condiment, and for this purpose it is also used in Spain; whilst, according to Giraldus Cambrensis, it forms with milk the diet of the fairies. Saffron is cultivated in various districts in the south of Europe; and in England, where it is said to have been introduced from the East in 1339, it was much grown till about 1768 in Essex (round Saffron-Walden) and Cambridgeshire. It is also cultivated in Persia, Afghanistan, and Cashmere. The gathered stigmas of the plant are pressed under a weight, and heat applied till the cake-shaped mass is quite dry. From so small a portion of the plant being useful, a vast number of flowers are required to make a small quantity of saffron. There is accordingly a strong temptation to adulterate it, the flowers of Carthamus (safflower) being much used for this purpose, for which reason they are sometimes called bastard saffron. The strong tinctorial power of saffron is owing to the presence of a body called polychroïte or safranin.
Saffron was of much greater importance centuries ago than it is now. It was in favour with the ancient Greeks as a dye, and with both them and the Romans as a perfume. In the middle ages it was employed in cookery and as a drug. It is on record that as late as the 15th century persons were burned alive in Nuremberg for adulterating saffron. The yellow colour of this dyeing substance seems to have been applied to the dress of royal persons at an early time in Greece and in Ireland, and to the shirts of persons of rank in the Western Islands of Scotland down to a comparatively late period.