Rethinking Pliny’s “Sicilian Crocus”

Ecophysiology, Environment, and Classical Texts

Bibliographic Data

ID8922096
AuthorsKathleen J Birney (0000-0002-5226-1072, Wesleyan University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume78
Issue3
Pages274-291
Publication date2024-05-07
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEconomic Botany (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0001 • E-ISSN: 1874-9364
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1007/s12231-024-09600-6
OpenAlexW4396688535
LanguageEN
References cited57

Classical scholars have long held that the saffron in widespread use throughout the ancient Mediterranean was Crocus sativus (Iridaceae), a sterile triploid descendant of the wild Crocus cartwrightianus , and indeed use of Crocus sativus in antiquity has been extensively borne out both by iconographic and phylogenetic studies. Two principal scholars of the Roman world, Dioscorides the physician and Pliny the natural historian, disagreed radically over the virtues and commercial value of saffron crocus from Sicily, with one praising its quality, and the other excoriating it. This study draws on ecophysiology, classical texts, environmental archeology, and phytochemistry to explain this disagreement and its implications. It explores the potential impact of microclimate on crocus cultivation in the ancient Mediterranean and proposes a new species identification for Sicilian crocus: Crocus longiflorus . The identification of Crocus longiflorus as “Sicilian saffron” offers an important corrective to the assumption that Crocus sativus was the sole crocus species of commercial value in the ancient Mediterranean and renews attention to the economic potential and utility of an indigenous southern Italian species overlooked in classical and later scholarship

Biology · Botany · Crocetin · Crocin · Crocus · Crocus sativus · Iridaceae · Safranal · Eurasian Exchange Networks · Saffron Plant Research Studies

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