674
ELEMENTS OE MATE HI A MF.DICA.
Spain, and some other European countries. It is a doubtful native ofthe Eastern parts of Europe . It is said to have been introduced intoSpain by the Arabs (Dillon, Travels through Spain ). It flowers in Sep-tember and October.
Preparation. —The flowers are gathered in the morning, and thestigmata, with part of the style, plucked out for use, the rest of the flowerbeing thrown away. The stigmata are then dried on paper, either kymeans of portable kilns over which a hair-cloth is stretched (Douglaf’Phil. Trans, for 1728), or in a room by the sun (Fiske, Stephenson sMed. Pot. vol. iii.) When dried between paper under the pressure oi athick board and weights, the saffron is formed into cakes now no longerto be met with.
Description. Two kinds of saffron are kept in the shops, viz. h^ysaffron and cake saffron.
1 . Hay Saffron. (Crocus infceno.) —Consists of the stigmas with p ar ^of the style, which have been very carefully dried. They are from a, ‘inch to an inch and a half long, thin, brownish red; the upper porn |iavstigma) is expanded, notched at the extremity; the lower portm 11 ’which constitutes part of the style, is called by Th. Martius (. Pharmako■(/»•)Fommelle : it is narrow, capillary, yellowish. The odour is penetrating’aromatic, and, of large quantities, narcotic. The taste is bitter, som e 'what aromatic. When chewed, saffron tinges the mouth and the salh ayellow. I find by careful examination that one grain of good con 1 'mercial saffron contains the stigmata and styles of nine flowers: be**4,320 flowers are required to yield one ounce of saffron.
a. English Saffron (Crocus anglicus) is no longer found in commerce. is
j8. Spanish Saffron (Crocus hispanicus) constitutes the best saffron of the shops,imported from Gibraltar (principally), Cadiz, Denia, Santander, and Malaga . j s |jthe concurrent accounts of pharmacologists it would appear that formerly. e dsaffron was spoiled by being dipped in oil to preserve it. But the saffron now imp ^ e \\from Spain has not been subjected to this treatment. Occasionally, Spanish , ® s ||.
as any other kind of saffron, is oiled by' the dealers to give it an appearance ofness, but this fraud is, I suspect, usually performed in this country. f sec 0 *’ 1 *
y. French Saffron (Crocus gallicus) is usually considered in commerce to be ofquality. It is the produce of Gatinais (Gatinais saffron) and Orleanais , "^! C \ v h 0 l eprebend part of the departments of Seine-et-Marne and Eure-et-Loire , and theof the department of Loiret. The saffron of Angouleme is the worst (GuibouDrag. ii. 254). French saffron is shipped for England at Calais, Boulog 11 ®’Havre. a rn)» c< j
Besides the preceding, several other varieties of saffron are mentioned by P‘ ,a a j,jte“logists, but they are not distinguished in English commerce, and I am uuacjjwith them. Such are Austrian , Bavarian, Oriental, and the Sicilian saffron (C -^acus, bavaricus, orientalis, and siciliensis) mentioned by Murray (App- hUd. ^. . fofGeiger (Handb. d. Pharrn.), and others. From the Customs report (Trade1887-8-9) it appears that saffron is occasionally imported from Hamburgh, A oa ]it/'Genoa, Naples, and Bombay. But I am ignorant of its place of growth and *1 pj<,s-According to Gussone (Lindley, FI. Med.) Crocus odorus yields Sicilian saffi' 0 ' 1 -, c j ai i 1 'corides (lib. i. cap. xxv.) considered the saffron of Corycus (a mountain of C* ofAsia Minor, now called Curco,) to be the best, and that of Lycia and Olymp us pi<) rfsecond quality; while Cyrenaic saffron, as well as that from CenturipmuCentorbe) in Sicily , he declares to be the worst.
2. Cake Saffron. (Crocus in placenta). —Formerly this was comp r ^ Jirhay saffron. But the cakes now met with in the inferior shops ar ® jlt0 a .posed of safflower ( Carthamus tinctorius) and gum-water,
m 1 6 a kcs
paste, and rolled out on a tin plate with a rolling-pin into oval c*.
11 inches long, 10 inches broad, and about one-tenth ol an inc 1