Crocuses straddle three kingdoms, serving as medicine, dye and spice.
Crocus sativus L. is a plant of the Iris family. In the Chinese Pharmacopoeia, its medicinal name is "saffron sativus".
Its Name is Saffron in English, Safran in French, Safran in German and Saffron in Latin. Return to earth and celestial country, namely Persian and other Arab countries, western region countries.
Another name for crocuses is saffron.
Crocuses are native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean coast. Historically, crocuses entered China from Tibet via India.
At present, crocus is mainly produced in Spain, Iran, India and other countries. Now, crocus has been successfully cultivated in Chongming Island of Shanghai and has a certain planting scale.
Why is crocus rare?
Firstly, its resource distribution is limited. Wild species are only found in countries with Mediterranean climate, not widely. And crocuses don't use the whole flower, just the stigma in the center of the flower. Crocuses bloom for a short period of time, often just a few hours, a flash in the pan.
Every crocuse-harvest season, families of crocuse-growers go out to get the crop. They usually go early in the morning and pick the stigmas from the flowers. It takes an average of 160,000 flowers to produce one kilogram of saffron. It takes an average of 500 hours of labor to pick one kilogram of saffron. It's all hand-picked and then spread out and dried slowly at a low temperature.
The safflower comes from compositae, and the crocus comes from iris.
Both are foreign drugs in common. Safflower arrived in China earlier, brought by Zhang Qian in the Western Han Dynasty.
Safflower likes light and temperature. It is a long-day plant with strong vitality. Xinjiang, with its dry climate and abundant sunshine, is the main producing area of safflower in China.
Crocus and the use of safflower
Both saffron and crocus promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis. The main difference between the two lies in that safflower sex is warm, crocus sex is cool can cool blood detoxification. At the same dose, crocus was much more potent.
In China, crocus is mainly used to promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis. Overseas, as early as the Middle Ages, saffron was widely used as a kind of panacea. Saffron is used to treat insomnia, colds and asthma. It is also used to fight scarlet fever and smallpox.
