Carthamus dentatus Blanco
Local names: Biri (Tag.); kasabha (Bis.); kasubha (Tag.);
kasumbo (Tag.); kachumba (Pamp.); lago (Tag.);
parrot seed, safflower, fake saffron,
wild saffron (Engl.).
Kasubha is planted here and there in the Philippines for dyeing purposes, but is nowhere spontaneous. It is a native of Egypt.
This plant is an erect, branched, smooth herb 30 to 90 centimeters in height. The leaves are stakless, half-clasping, lanceolate, 5 to 10 centimeters long, and 1 to 2.5 centimeters wide, but smaller toward the top, the margins are minutely spiny toothed. The flowering heads are large, surrounded by a cluster of leafy bracts which gradually become the bracts of the involucre, and 2.5 to 4 centimeters across. The outer involucre-bracts are ovate-oblong. The flowers are orange-red. The achemes (often deformed) are obovoid, usually 4-ribbed, and truncate at the top. The pappus is absent or scalelike.
Kasubha is grown in the Philippines for the dye obtained from its flowers. The flowers are used in coloring foods yellow and as a culinary ingredient. Brown reports that the dye is used in preparation for toilet rouges, for which purpose it is mixed with powdered talc. The dye colors silk a brilliant scarlet, but is not permanent. Nadkarni says that the oil from the seeds is a most valuable, edible oil. It is also used in the manufacture of soaps. Stuart says that in China the shoots of the young plants are eaten in times of scarcity. The oil is used as a lubricant and in candle-making.
Wehmer records that the flowers contain a coloring principle, carthamin (C14H16O7). The seeds contain fixed oil 28.7 per cent, proteins 14.11 per cent, cellulose 30.6 per cent, etc.
The flowers are official in the Danish (1); French (1,3); Mexican (1-4); Spanish (1-5); Swedish (1); and United States (1-6) Pharmacopoeias; and the fruit figure in the Danish (1); French (1,3); and Spanish (1-5) Pharmacopoeias.
Nadkarni states that a hot infusion of dried flowers is given as a diaphoretic in jaundice, nasal catarrh, and mascular rheumatism. A cold infusion is used as a laxative and tonic in measles and scarlantina to flavor efflorescence of eruptions. Crevost and Petelot say that in Indo-China the flowers are given in dysmenorrhea and paralysis as a tonic and emmenagogue. The seeds and oil are considered purgative. Stuart mentions that in China, kasubha is used as an abortifacient and to expel a retained placenta. According to Nadkarni the plant, boiled in sesamum oil, is a valuable remedy for itches.
Dymock says that the
Sanskrit writers describe the seeds as a purgative and also mention a medicated
oil which is prepared from the plant for external application in rheumatism and
paralysis. Mehometan writers enumerate a great many diseases in which the seeds
may be used as a laxative; they consider them to have the power of removing
phlegmatic humors from the system. Dymock quotes Ainslie, who mentions that the
Vytians used the fixed oil as an external application, also for bad ulcers. The
small seeds are reckoned among their laxative medicines. Kirtikar and Basu
report that in the Punjab the seeds are considered to be diuretic and tonic.