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Human cultivation and use of saffron spans more than 3,500 years and extends across cultures, continents, and civilizations. Saffron, a spice derived from the dried stigmas of the saffron crocus (''Crocus sativus''), has through history remained among the world's most costly substances. With its bitter taste, hay-like fragrance, and slight metallic notes, the apocarotenoid-rich saffron has been used as a seasoning, fragrance, dye, and medicine. The saffron crocus is a genetically monomorphic clone native to Southwest Asia; it was first cultivated in Greece. The wild precursor of domesticated saffron crocus was likely ''Crocus cartwrightianus'', which originated in Crete or Central Asia; ''C. thomasii'' and ''C. pallasii'' are other possible sources. The saffron crocus is now a triploid that is "self-incompatible" and male sterile; it undergoes aberrant meiosis and is hence incapable of independent sexual reproduction—all propagation is by vegetative multiplication via manual "divide-and-set" of a starter clone or by interspecific hybridisation. If ''C. sativus'' is a mutant form of ''C. cartwrightianus'', then it may have emerged in late Bronze Age Crete. Humans may have bred ''C. cartwrightianus'' specimens by screening for specimens with abnormally long stigmas. The resulting saffron crocus was documented in a 7th-century BC Assyrian botanical reference compiled under Ashurbanipal, and it has since been traded and used over the course of four millennia and has been used as treatment for some ninety disorders. The ''C. sativus'' clone was slowly propagated throughout much of Eurasia, later reaching parts of North Africa, North America, and Oceania. Global production on a by-mass basis is now dominated by Iran, which accounts for some nine-tenths of the annual harvest. ==Etymology== The ultimate origin of the English word ''saffron'' is, like that of the cultivated saffron clone itself, of somewhat uncertain origin. It immediately stems from the Latin word ' via the 12th-century Old French term ''safran''. Etymology beyond that point is conflicted. ''Safranum'' may derive via the Persian intercessor زعفران, or ''za'ferân''. Others give an alternative derivation: that زَعْفَرَان (''za'farān'') is the arabicised form of the Persian word ''zarparān'' (''zar'' + ''par'' + ''-ān''—"having yellow leaves"). An even older form is the Akkadian ''azupiranu'', "saffron". The Latin form ' is also the source of the Catalan ''safrà'', Italian ''zafferano'', but Portuguese'' açafrão'', and Spanish ''azafrán'' come from the Arabic ''az-zaferán''. The Latin term ''crocus'' is certainly a Semitic loan word. It is adapted from the Aramaic form ''kurkema'' via the Arabic term ''kurkum'' and the Greek intermediate κρόκος ''krokos'', which once again signifies "yellowish". Its ultimate origin might be from the Sanskrit ''kunkumam'' unless this was itself borrowed from Semitic. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「History of saffron」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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