A perennial herb with a solid, depressed, globular corm about an inch in diameter, giving off from its under surface several slender whitish roots, covered with a thin coating of several layers of fine longitudinal pale brown fibres, and producing on the top one or more buds. Leaves produced from the new bud, few, very closely placed, sessile, forming an erect tuft. Flowers 2 together, or solitary, appearing with the leaves and borne on a very short erect peduncle form a leaf axil, closely enveloped bya delicate membranous spathe which is bifid at the apex. Perianth very large, erect, monophyllous, regular, with a slender, delicate, cylindrical tube about 4 inches long and adherent to the ovary at the base, and 6 oblong-oval, blunt, concave segments, in two rows. The stamens 3, inserted in the mouth of the tube opposite the outer segments, anthers linear, longer than the filaments. Fruit not seen. Seeds numerous in each cell, sub-globose, with a fleshy testa and 6 small embryo in the axis of the fleshy endosperm.

Abortifacient, anodyne, antispasmodic, aphrodisiac, appetizer, carminative, diaphoretic, emmenagogue, expectorant, narcotic, sedative, stimulant.

Herb Information
Plants for a Future
Herbal Monograph

The glycosides, crocin and picocricin together with α- and β-carotene, lycopin, a crystalline hydrocarbon, safranal, myricetin, delphinidin, kaempferol, naphthalene, petunidin, pinene, quercetin, xanthophyll and zeaxanthin.

To treat chronic haemorrhages in the uterus of adults, to induce menstruation, treat period pains and calm indigestion, colic, in fevers, melancholia and enlargement of the liver. A dental analgesic is obtained from the stigmas.

Do not use when pregnant; large doses is narcotic