VI ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORDS CROCUS AND SAFFRON. 



Sanskrit. l?f^37 haridra* 



Hindustani, ^^f^t <4^ ^ a ^' 



Persian. <1jJJa'- zerd-chub (literally, yellow wood), and ^ hurd. 



Arabic. ^ hurd, and V^ kurkum. 



Syriac. rdsiik-icvA ia^- '&1&? kiirkama, i.e., kiirkama roots.t 



The mediaeval Greek KovpKov^,\ and the low Latin Curcuma, which has been 

 adopted as the botanical name of the genus, are simply the Arabic word adapted 

 to the Greek and Latin alphabets. 



This plant, of the order Scitaminece, is no more like a Crocus than Carthamus 

 tinctorius is like one. It is figured by Redoute, Liliacece, vol. viii, tab. 473. Some 

 of the other species of Curcuma are showy. They are handsomely figured in Roscoe's 

 Scitaminece, tabb. 99 to 109. For those who may not have seen the plant or the 

 figures, the following description of the habit of the genus Curcuma\ may be of 

 use. " The rhizome is thick and provided with tuber-bearing fibres. The stems erect, 

 1 to 10 feet high. Leaves often large. Flowers arranged in a very dense, strobiliform 

 (top-shaped), oblong or elongated thyrsus, furnished with ample imbricated bracts, 

 which are concave or hooded and rounded at the apex, the upper bracts often empty, 

 coloured and beautifully comosc (tufted). In C. longa the flowers are large, whitish 

 with a faint tinge of yellow, and the tuft and bracts greenish-white. The dye or 

 drug is obtained from the palmate tubers, which are inwardly of a deep orange colour." 



More than thirty species of Curcuma have been enumerated, mostly natives of 

 tropical Asia, though some extend to tropical Africa, the islands of the Pacific, and 

 the northern extremity of Australia. Several species are cultivated and have been 

 spread beyond their indigenous area. Thus C. longa is commonly grown in many 

 parts of India, where Turmeric is largely used as a dye, medicine, or seasoner. It 

 is also grown and used in Madagascar ;|| and in the latter part of the last century 

 Forsk 1 found it in cultivation in Yemen % under the name of kurkum. There is 

 no evidence that its cultivation ever spread farther. The Spanish-Arabian writers on 



* This is a compound word, literally signifying yellow-wood ; the Prakrit forms are l[««f^T haladda, and 

 l^JTl haladdl, whence the Hindi IpJT^t haldi, vulgarly bald. Piatt's Hindustani Dictionary, p. 1231. 



+ Low, Aramiiisclie t'Jltnzcnnamen, p. 219. 

 } Du Cange. 



§ Translated from Bentham and Hooker, Gen. Plant., iii, p. 643. 

 || Exempl. in Herb. Kew. 

 T Forskal, Flora Aigyptiaco-Arabica, pp. 92, 102. 



