CARTHAMUS 



RACES CULTIVATED TINCTORIUS 



Two Crops 



have originated the botanical name (<n-th<ntin. The moat prevalent 

 Indian vernacular name kusum comes direct from the Sanskrit ktuumbha. 

 History. " This plant is the kusumbha of Sanskrit writers, who describe the 

 seeds as purgative, and mention a medicated oil " (Pharmacog. Ind., ii., 308). 

 'I'll. it is the commonly accepted opinion, but on the other hand Dutt (Mat. Med. 

 II in'L, 307) makes no mention of the special knowledge possessed by the Sanskrit 

 iniMlinil \\riters, and it may be added the medical treatise which constitutes The 

 Manuscript (Hoernle, transl.) is silent both as to the kusumbha plant 

 its oil. The Greek cnicua (Paulus ASgineta (Adams, transl.), iii., 178) by Cnieut reraus 

 at authors is identified with the Bastard Saffron. The early Greek authors Cart/tamm. 

 of cnicua as a spinose plant, but Dioscorides (iv., 187 (ed. Sprengel), 1829, 

 )) mentions that it was a pot-herb and purgative medicine. Galen, Avi- 

 Serapion, Rhases, etc., follow Dioscorides, but most Arab writers add 

 additional property that it is alexipharmic. Mesua, who Ik 3d at Bagdad 

 the 10th century, wrote a great work on the Medicine of the Greeks and Arabs. 

 opens his account of cnicua (Marinus, transl., 1562, 74) by observing 

 it the plant is both wild and cultivated, but that the so-called Indian cnicua 

 not cnicuK at all. He then observes that the seed is the most valuable, 

 iull\- the large white kind. The figure given by Marinus is an excellent 

 antation of \ tinctoriiiH. Carthamus was retained in European pharmacy 

 i to comparatively recent times. De Candolle (Orig. Cult. Plants (Engl. transl. ), 

 I), following Targioni-Tozzetti (Cenni Storici, Intro, di Varie Piante, 1853, 

 i), thinks the determination of the Greek cnicua with Carthamus very doubtful. 



distinctly says the oil was used in Egypt in place of castor-oil, but he Purgative Oil. 

 the plant was not known to the Romans. It rnay be added that Pliny 

 rites it cnicus and Columella cnecus. 

 The grave-cloths of the ancient Egyptian mummies are dyed with safflower, 

 fragments of the plant and the seeds have been found in tombs. [Cf. 

 iwlinson, Hist. Egypt, 1881, i., 62-3; Hehn, Kulturpft. und Hauat. (ed. 6), 

 Jl ; Wiesner, Die Rohst. dea Pflanzenr., ii., 678-84.] The Sanskrit authors describe 

 kusumbha oil as purgative, so that identical properties were assigned to it in 

 >t, Africa and India. An Abyssinian so-called wild species (c. innntum, Abyssinian 

 "Schweinfurth, F I. Mth., 1867, 143) has by some writers been accepted as the Wild Plant. 

 ml stock of the cultivated plant ; so also, and with equal if not greater 

 r. Oxyacantha, the Indian wild species, has been advanced as the source 

 the cultivated plant. De Candolle accordingly came to the opinion that since 

 undoubted ancient cultivation had been established for both India and 

 rica it was probable the true Carfc*m tim-toritm might be found wild in 

 intermediate country Arabia. He accordingly cites in part support of 

 it suggestion the circumstance that an author quoted by Ibn Baithar (the 

 ib, Abu Anifa) mentions both a wild and cultivated form as met with in 

 at very country. In China there would seem little doubt safflower (hung-hua Chinese Plant 

 red-flower) was introduced about the 2nd century B.C. [Cf. Breitschneider, 

 Bot. Disc, in China, 1898, 4 ; also Value Chinese Botanical Works, 1870, 

 5.] Japan received it from China, but according to Rein (Indust. Japan, 

 76-7) it can hardly be regarded as more than a botanical curiosity in that 

 itry the cosmetic beni being manufactured from foreign (mostly Indian) 

 pplies of safflower. [Cf. Milburn, Or. Comm., 1813, ii., 238-9; Buchanan- 

 un ilt on, Stat. Ace. Dinaj., 208 ; Lacaita, in Maw, Genus Crocus, app. v. ; 

 Tropenflanzer, viii., 511 ; Joret, Lea PI. dans L'Antiq., 1904, ii., 272.] 

 Cultivated Indian Races. There are two main conditions, one TWO Crops. 

 grown purely and simply for its flowers the safHower dye of commerce, 

 the other for its oil-yielding seeds, the kusum or carihamus oil of trade. 

 The former is fairly extensively produced in Bengal, the United Pro- 

 vinces and the Pan jab, while the latter is chiefly met with in the Central 

 Provinces and Bombay. But while these two conditions or properties 

 seem well understood agriculturally, dried specimens of the plant grown 

 for the one or the other purpose are indistinguishable. Moreover several 

 races occur under each of these states, such as with small, very hard 

 spinose leaves (much as in C. Oxyacantha) or with large, soft, almost 

 non-spinose edible leaves. Some have narrow, hard and sharply spinose 

 bracts, others broad almost entire bracts. Still, however, most of these 



277 



Indian Wild 

 Plant. 



