603. Carthamus.—Safflower. American Saffron.

603. CARTHAMUS.—SAFFLOWER. AMERICAN SAFFRON. The florets of Cartha'mus tincto'rius Willdenow. (Official, 1820-1880.) Habitat: India, Levant, and Egypt; cultivated. Orange-red; tube long, slender, cylindrical with the two-cleft yellowish style protruding; strap divided into five narrow, lanceolate lobes; odor peculiar, aromatic; taste bitter. It contains two coloring principles, safflower-yellow, C24H₃₀O₁₅ (24 to 30 per cent.), and a red principle, carthamin, C₁₄H₁₆O₇, or carthamic acid, to the latter of which its value as a dyestuff is due, and which, mixed with talc, forms rouge. Cathartic and diaphoretic in large doses of the warm infusion; in domestic practice used as a substitute for saffron to promote eruption in measles, scarlatina, etc. Dose: 8 to 15 gr. (0.5 to 1 Gm.).

A Manual of Organic Materia Medica and Pharmacognosy, 1917, was written by Lucius E. Sayre, B.S. Ph. M.