Saffron Crocus—Conjuring Color and Flavor in the Autumn Garden
Long before flowers were cultivated solely for their good looks,
they were grown to serve some practical, or even preternatural,
purpose. This was especially true in the good old days of Minoan
Crete, about 1500 BC, when a thriving industry and religious
iconography grew up around Crocus sativus, the corm better known
as saffron crocus. Saffron crocus is no ordinary autumn-blooming
beauty. Its fragrant, deep lavender, purple-veined flowers house
long, scarlet stigmas (the pollen-receptive portions of the
female pistils) that can be plucked and dried to make the highly
prized spice saffron. Although there are roughly 80 species of
crocus, the entire genus is named after this, its most versatile
and arguably most handsome member (krokos being the Greek word
for "saffron"). The crocus flower suffused Bronze Age Minoan
culture. A famous fresco of that era depicts women with crocus
blossoms woven or embroidered on costumes of saffron-dyed cloth,
wearin