Kesar

Saffron has no wild home. It is a sterile clone that arose, almost certainly just once and probably near Athens, from a wild crocus called Crocus cartwrightianus. Because it cannot set seed, every saffron corm on earth was planted by someone. Each lilac flower holds the prize: three long crimson threads (the stigmas) that spill over the edge of the flower. One kilogram of dried saffron takes somewhere between 110,000 and 170,000 hand-picked flowers.