CARTHAMUS TINCTORIUS, Lmn. 



[F«rfe Plate XIII.] 



English, safflower; Vernacular, kusum, kusumbh, kar (the seed), barre (in the Benares 

 Division). 



Natural order Comjwsita^, tribe Cynaroidecc. A glabrous tliistle-liket lierb with reddish orange 

 flowers. Stems about 2 ft. high, much branched above. Leaves sessile, oblong lanceolate, with 

 serrate aculeate edges or nearly entire. Flowers in largo compact heads ; outer involucre bracts 

 leafy, ovate oblong, constricted above the base, entire or spinulose, inner bracts narrower. Florets 

 tubular, hermaphrodite or a few of the marginal ones sterUe, tube slender, limb oblong. Anthei'S 

 sagittate at the base. Achenes \ in., smooth, obovoid, truncate at the top, obliquely 4-angular, 

 with four projectmg ribs. 



The product for which the safflower plant is mainly cultivated is the beautiful pink 

 dye yielded by its flowers, which is familiar in the rose coloured turbans worn by the 

 Marwari traders of Eajputana. But the seed is also of considerable value as an oil 

 producer, yielding a bland clear oil, which is occasionally used to adulterate glii, and 

 forming in its refuse an oil cake which is much appreciated by cattle. The foliage of the 

 plant in ordinary cultivation is thickly armed with spines, but a smooth leaved variety 

 known as miiriUa (or " shaved ") is reported to be grown in the Azamgarh District. 



Safflower cultivation is almost entirely concentrated in the Meerut Division, which 

 contains 89 per cent, of the total area under it in the 30 temporarily settled N.-W. 

 Provinces Districts. Next to Meerut its cultivation is most extensive in Eohilkhand, 

 which contains, however, only 5 per cent, of the total area, and in no other Division does 

 the area exceed 3 per cent, of the total. The reason for this unequal distribution lies 

 principally in the fact that the demand for the dye is almost solely from Eajputana, 

 and until lately has been met entirelj' through the market of Dehli, and it is there- 

 fore in this neighbourhood that its cultivation has been stimulated. The District 

 which is most closely connected with Dehli is Bulandshahr in the Meerut Division, 

 and this contains 91 per cent, of the area under safflower in this Division, and 81 

 per cent, of the total area in all the temporarily settled N.-W. Provinces Districts. 

 Without doubt, however, the light soil of the Meerut Division is specially suited to it, 

 and that safflower is considerably affected by local differences is proved by certain partic- 

 ular villages having obtained a name for the peculiar excellence of the dye their soil 

 produces ; amongst these may be mentioned Ganeslipur in the Meerut and Sankni in the 

 Bulandshahr District. Since safflower does not form a separate heading in the annual 



* References :— Boiss. ri. Orient iii. 709 ; Clarke Comp. Ind. 244 ; Hook. Fl. Ind. iii. 386 ; Roxb. Fl, Ind. iii. 409 ; 

 Powell Funj. Prod. 355 ; Drury Useful PI. of Ind. 116. 



f High cultivation reduces its spiny cliaracter as in the case of the hcngan {Solatium Melonrjcna) and many other plants 

 which in their wild state are very prickly. Mr. C. B. Clarke believes that G. oxyacantha, Bieb,, indigenous in the Punjab, may 

 be the wild original of safflower. 



H 2 



