Saffron crocus--love this little plant! Thomas Jefferson used to grow it at Monticello. Before I heard that, I always thought that it needed a warmer climate but it grows fine here. Beautiful purple flowers whose orange filaments you can use to flavor your paella if you are Spanish or dye your robes a golden yellow if you are a Buddhist monk.
It is the traditional flavoring for Cornish pastries, supposed to have come to Cornwall in England when Phoenician traders exchanged it for tin to make bronze during the bronze age. Other stories have it brought to England by the conquering Romans. It was a valuable spice in Imperial Rome. Or it returned with the crusaders from the middle east. The Arabic word for yellow is za'fran.
It blooms in October when color is always welcome. In the picture you can see the three red-orange filaments coming out of the flower--that is the saffron. You can harvest it and still leave the flower in place. I let the filaments dry inside on a plate for two or three days and fold them by pinches into small squares of wax paper to be stored in a covered spice jar.
A few years ago I moved the saffron to a sunnier spot in the front slope. I must have missed a few small bulbs in the old place because this year some of them were large enough to bloom and I noticed them. I can dig them up when the leaves die down in April to bring along to the swap. They'll need to be replanted in August.
