Saffron

Saffron (pronounced /ˈsæfrən/ or /ˈsæfrɒn/) is a spice derived from the flower of Crocus sativus, commonly known as the "saffron crocus". Saffron crocus grows to 20–30 cm (8–12 in) and bears up to four flowers, each with three vivid crimson stigmas, which are the distal end of a carpel. The styles and stigmas, called threads, are collected and dried to be used mainly as a seasoning and colouring agent in food. Saffron, long among the world's most costly spices by weight, is native to Greece or Southwest Asia and was first cultivated in Greece. As a genetically monomorphic clone, it was slowly propagated throughout much of Eurasia and was later brought to parts of North Africa, North America, and Oceania.

The saffron crocus, unknown in the wild, probably descends from Crocus cartwrightianus, which originated in Crete;C. thomasii and C. pallasii are other possible precursors. The saffron crocus is a triploid that is "self-incompatible" and male sterile; it undergoes aberrant meiosis and is hence incapable of independent sexual reproduction—all propagation is by vegetative multiplication via manual "divide-and-set" of a starter clone or by interspecific hybridisation. If C. sativus is a mutant form of C. cartwrightianus, then it may have emerged via plant breeding, which would have selected for elongated stigmas, in late Bronze Age Crete.

Saffron (album)

Saffron is a collaborative album by Ron Contour (Moka Only) & Factor. It was released on Fake Four Inc. in 2010.

Track listing

References

External links

List of Firefly characters

This page lists characters from the television series Firefly.

Major characters

Malcolm Reynolds

Malcolm Reynolds, played by Nathan Fillion, is owner and captain of the Firefly-class spaceship Serenity, and was a volunteer in the war between the Alliance and the Independents (aka "Browncoats"). He got the name for his spaceship from a famous battle he fought and commanded in, the Battle of Serenity Valley. When asked why he named his ship after a lost battle, Zoe comments "Once you're in Serenity, you never leave. You just learn how to live there." He is fiercely loyal to those he calls his crew.

Malcolm's main mission is to keep his crew alive and to keep his ship flying. As Firefly writer Tim Minear stated in an interview: "It's just about getting by. That's always been the mission statement of what the show is — getting by." In "Serenity", Mal says of himself: "[If the] Wind blows northerly, I go North."

Screens from Serenity suggest that Mal was born on September 20, 2468 — which would make him 49 at the time of the series Firefly — though, as the average human lifespan is 120, this would make him the equivalent of a man in his early 30s today. Mal was raised by his mother and "about 40 hands" on a ranch on the planet Shadow. Though Mal usually seems more practical than intellectual, he occasionally surprises his friends by displaying familiarity with disparate literature varying from the works of Xiang Yu to poems by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, though he has no idea "who" Mona Lisa is.