ABSTRACT

Crocus sativus L., a plant from the iris family (Iridaceae), is mainly grown in the Mediterranean and southwestern Asia (Gresta et al. 2008). Commercial saffron consists of the dried red stigma of the fl ower with a small portion of the yellowish style attached (Fig. 4.1). While saffron is principally used in cooking and baking, it is also used to add fl avor and color to both alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages. Other less extended applications include its use as a dye in the textile industry and as an excipient in pharmaceutical preparations (Ríos et al. 1996). Saffron is recognized as the most expensive, and therefore the most interesting and attractive, spice in the world, prized for its coloring, bitterness, and aromatic power of its dried stigmas (Gresta et al. 2008).