Saffron

From BibleEncyclopedia.Net

Heb. karkom, Arab. zafran (i.e., “yellow”), mentioned only in Son_4:13, Son_4:14; the Crocus sativus. Many species of the crocus are found in Palestine. The pistils and stigmata, from the centre of its flowers, are pressed into “saffron cakes,” common in the East. “We found,” says Tristram, “saffron a very useful condiment in traveling cookery, a very small pinch of it giving not only a rich yellow colour but an agreeable flavour to a dish of rice or to an insipid stew.”

saf´run (כּרכּם, karkōm; κρόκος, krókos):

Identical with the Arabic kurḳum, the same as za‛farān, “saffron.” The source of the true saffron is Crocus sativus (Natural Order, Indaceae), a plant cultivated in Palestine; there are 8 wild varieties in all of which, as in the cultivated species, the orange-colored styles and stigmas yield the yellow dye, saffron. Son_4:14 probably refers to the C. sativus. There is a kind of bastard saffron plant, the Carthamus tinctorius (Natural Order, Compositae), of which the orange-colored flowers yield a dye like saffron.