Saffron, alias: red and blue flowers? , prickly saffron, Asteraceae, safflower plants, dry tubular flowers, orange-red, narrow tube, apex 5-lobed, lobes narrowly linear, anthers yellow, united into a tube, higher than the lobes outside, whose center has a stigma exposed. With special aroma, taste slightly bitter. The long, bright red color and soft texture of the flower pieces are preferred.

Mainly produced in Henan, Hunan, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Tibet and other places. Promote blood circulation and menstruation, dissipate blood stasis and relieve pain, help to cure menstrual closure, dysmenorrhea, dysmenorrhea, chest paralysis and heartburn, abdominal pain with stagnation, thoracic and hypochondriac stabbing pain, bruises, sores and swelling and pain efficacy. It has the effect of activating blood circulation and removing blood stasis, dispersing dampness and removing swelling, avoiding the use of pregnant women, otherwise it will cause miscarriage.

Ancient red dyes can be dyed although there is also cress, but cress for the earth red, and the need for a more complex mordant process, and safflower dyed for the "true red", and can be dyed directly on the fibers, so it occupies an extremely important position in the red dyes.

Red was once the popular color of the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Tang Dynasty, Li Zhong's poem "saffron color cover thousands of flowers, any orangutan blood has not been added," a graphic overview of the saffron extraordinary effect of the gorgeous.

According to modern scientific analysis, safflower contains two kinds of pigments, yellow and red, of which yellow pigment is soluble in water and acidic solution, and has no dye value in ancient times, while in modern times it is often used as a safe additive for food coloring.

And the red pigment is easily dissolved in alkaline aqueous solution, in neutral or weakly acidic solution can produce precipitation, the formation of bright red color precipitate deposited on the fiber, to obtain a certain degree of fastness of red clothing.

Ancient people used safflower to make red dyes in the following process: the dewy safflower picked back after the "pestle and mortar" into a pulp, plus water impregnation. Under neutral conditions, the yellow pigment is dissolved, and the yellow pigment (i.e., yellow juice) is removed with a cloth bag, so that most of the remaining residual flowers have been red pigment.

After that, then the acidic corn or rice water has been acidic acid juice rinse, further remove the residual yellow pigment, you can get the residual flowers containing red pigment cake. This method of extracting safflower pigment, the ancients called "kill flower method", this method in the Sui and Tang dynasties have been transmitted to Japan and other countries.

If you want to use saffron for a long time, you only need to cover it with artemisia (which has antibacterial effect) overnight, pinch it into a pancake shape, and then dry it out and process it, and then make it into "saffron cake" to store it.

To be used, only with alkaline water or straw ash clarification a few times, the red pigment is dissolved, you can dye. Finally, with the umeboshi acidic water treatment, equivalent to solid color, red precipitate generation, the end of the dyeing process. "Saffron cake" was popularized after the Song and Yuan Dynasties.

Also in ancient times, saffronin was immersed in starch to make rouge.

Expanded:

I. Morphological Characteristics

Saffron is an annual herb. Height (20) 50-100 (150) centimeters.

Stem erect, upper branches, all stem branches white or pale white, smooth, glabrous. Middle and lower stem leaves lanceolate, lanceolate or long elliptic, 7-15 cm long, 2.5-6 cm wide, margins large serrate, biserrate, serrulate to unserrate and entire.

Very rarely pinnatipartite, with pinnae at the apex of the teeth, the pinnae 1-1.5 mm long, the upwardly directed leaves tapering, lanceolate, with serrate margins, the pinnae at the apex of the teeth longer, up to 3 mm long. All leaves are hard, leathery, glabrous without glandular dots on both surfaces, glossy, sessile at the base, semi-clasping.

Heads numerous, arranged in corymbs at the tips of the stem branches, surrounded by bracts, bracts elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, including apical needles 2.5-3 cm long, with needles along the margins, needles 1-3 mm long, or without needles, apically tapering, with grated teeth-like needles, needles 2 mm long.

The involucre is ovate, 2.5 cm in diameter. Involucral bracts 4-layered, outer layer harp-shaped, with a central or lower constriction, leafy above the constriction, green, margin without needles or with grate-toothed needles, needles up to 3 mm long, apically acuminate, with a length of 1-2 mm, yellowish-white below the constriction.

Middle and inner layers stiffly membranous, oblanceolate-elliptic to long oblanceolate, up to 2.3 cm long, apically acuminate. All bracts glabrous without glandular dots. Florets red, orange-red, all bisexual, corolla 2.8 cm long, slender tube 2 cm long, corolla lobes reaching several times to the base of the gable.

Achenes obovate, 5.5 mm long, 5 mm wide, creamy white, with 4 ribs, the ribs protruding at the apex of the fruit, lateral to the bearing surface. Crown hairs absent. Flowering and fruiting May-August.

Two, geographic distribution

Native to Central Asia, the Soviet Union has wild, but also planted, Japan, Korea are planted. Domestic Henan, Xinjiang, Gansu, Shandong, Zhejiang, Sichuan and Tibet are also planted. China in the above areas have introduced planting, Shanxi, Gansu, Sichuan also see the wild.

References:

Baidu Encyclopedia - Saffron