A single kilo of saffron is worth up to $10,000. Here’s the genetic history of the world’s most expensive spice

Saffron, the world’s most expensive spice, is extracted from the flowers of the saffron crocus, Crocus sativus. It has been grown for thousands of years in the Mediterranean region. But when and where was saffron first domesticated by our ancestors? In a review in Frontiers in Plant Science, researchers conclude that lines of evidence from ancient art and genetics converge on the same region.

“Both ancient artworks and genetics point to Bronze Age Greece, in approximately 1700 BCE or earlier, as the origin of saffron’s domestication,” said Ludwig Mann, one of the leading authors and a PhD student at Technische Universität Dresden, Germany.

The authors argue that artworks from the Minoan civilization of ancient Greece are likely the oldest to depict domesticated saffron. For example, the dense patches of crocus flowers on the fresco ‘The Saffron Gatherers’ from the island of Santorini (approximately 1600 BCE) suggest cultivation. Another fresco on the same island, ‘The Adorants’, shows flowers with long, dark-red stigmas which overtop dark violet petals, typical of domesticated saffron.

…

Related on the SLP

Wine story: From Stone Age seed domestication to new age fermentation, here is the evolutionary history of wine Early plant domestication: How humans co-evolved with ancient crops

Should doctors engage in social media to counter misinformation?

‘Symptom borrowing’: Young people are copying health problems they see on TikTok

White House drafting executive order to control what OMB Director Vought claims are “woke” NIH science grants

An origin in Bronze Age Greece agrees with results from genetic studies from 2019, which showed that C. cartwrightianus, which only occurs in mainland Greece and Crete, is saffron’s closest wild relative.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here