So ancient a love affair exists between humans and saffron, that it can no longer reproduce without our help. Could its antidepressant and health-promoting properties be an example of saffron ‘returning the favor’?
A alluring clue to how ancient the love affair between our species and saffron goes is that the plant known in Latin as Crocos sativus cannot reproduce without human assistance. Sterile, incapable of producing viable seeds, its bulb-like, starch-storing organ (clustered in what are known as corms), must painstakingly dug up, broken into individual bulbs, and replanted by hand.
What would have inspired this relationship? What would have compelled ancient farmers and herbalists to perpetuate, unbroken, this plant’s life cycle for thousands of generations? Is this an example of co-evolutionary interdependence?
Still today, it takes a Herculean effort to produce enough saffron to meet the global demand, that is barely met. One hundred and fifty hand-picked flowers still yields just 1,000 mg (0.035 oz) of dry saffron threads, and costs approximately $1,000 U.S. dollars a pound on the global market; there is no questioning that our motivation to engage saffron as a primary plant ally is as powerful today as it was a thousand years ago.
There must be more to the human desire to produce and acquire saffron than its culinary role as a seasoning alone. Perhaps saffron possesses powerful medicinal and or psychoactive properties, capable of alleviating human suffering and/or brightening the human condition, that we are only now beginning to rediscover through the optic of modern scientific research….
Saffron: Plenty of Evidence for Appreciating Its Role as a Medicine Botanical
Indeed, our ongoing research indexing project at Greenmedinfo.com reveals saffron has over 40 therapeutic applications in medicine, preventing and/or treating conditions such as erectile dysfunction, macular degeneration, Alzheimer’s disease, and even clinically diagnosed depression.
Notably, many of the conditions saffron seems to ameliorate are psychiatric, that is, address imbalances in the human psyche, soul.
“Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Flowers embody something truly wondrous about the design of the universe. They are what I would call an example of the universe’s intrinsic superfluity (definition: “an unnecessarily or excessively large amount or number of something”), embodying a seemingly unnecessary excess of beauty. Flowers remind us that the fabric of reality is comprised of more than just atoms. There is poetry, abundance, and aesthetic inspiration built into the structure of things, as long as we have the eyes and sense to perceive it.
After all, reproduction – especially as described mechanically by modern biological science – doesn’t need erotic engagement, scent, the simultaneity of touch, ecstasy, and all the synesthetic experiences associated with the first-hand experience of love-making; nor did Nature need color, scent, and the visually enchanting qualities of flowers for plants to fulfill their role in producing the next generation.
Saffron, I believe, is a perfect example of the ‘benevolent excess,’ as well as intelligence and compassion, built into the relationships between diverse species on this planet. When come to appreciate the divine order of things inscribed within the web of life, and the way in which species have spent hundreds of millions of years depending upon, appreciating, and supporting one another, clearly saffron’s unique properties to ameliorate physical and psycho-spiritual suffering in humans should not be that surprising.
Original article: Greem Med Info