Research report · Ethnobotany

Joghasem worldwideCrocus haussknechtii (Boiss. & Reut. ex Maw) Boiss.

Tracing an edible wild crocus of the Zagros through names, books, papers and songs in Iran and beyond. Every finding is tagged by species, so joghasem is never confused with cultivated saffron or other crocuses.

1Species profile

What the botanical sources say about this species itself.

1867First scientific specimen, Mt Dalakhani above Sonqor
47Local names in 12 Iranian provinces · see the map
3 countriesIran, Iraq and Jordan (per Kew)
0Published studies on its cultivation or domestication
Accepted name
Crocus haussknechtii (Boiss. & Reut. ex Maw) Boiss., Fl. Orient. 5: 100 (1882)36
Synonyms
C. sativus var. haussknechtii Maw, 1881 — first described as “a variety of cultivated saffron”
C. pallasii subsp. haussknechtii B.Mathew, 1977 — restored to species rank in 2018421
Persian names
جوغاسم joghasem, جوقاسم jowqāsem, “Joghasem saffron”, “Joghasem tulip”, پیشوک pishuk and dozens of local names12
Type specimen
Carl Haussknecht no. 913a, October 1867, “sunny limestone slopes of Mt Dalechani above Sungur, between Kermanshah and Hamadan, 5000 ft”. Isotype in the Jena herbarium (JE 00013562)56
Distribution
Central Zagros of Iran (667–3,127 m), northern Iraq and southern Jordan318
Flowering
Autumn (October–November). Leaves appear in spring as the snow melts16
Edible part
The underground corm — eaten raw, roasted, or boiled in milk28
Relation to saffron
Same series (Crocus) and a close relative of cultivated saffron, but not its ancestor — that is C. cartwrightianus22
Chromosomes
2n = 12, 14 and 16 — suggesting several undescribed species may hide under this name1420
Conservation
The 2024 revision lists it among the four Iranian crocuses whose status is not alarming19; still, over-harvesting is the main threat to the genus in Iran18
!

Safety: local names are shared between the edible joghasem and the poisonous autumn crocus (Colchicum). The official Turkish dictionary defines çiğdem as Colchicum29, and in Kurdish Colchicum is called “wild pîvok”. Farhadi’s article gives the field test for joghasem: three stamens, a white stripe down the leaf, and a net-like fibrous tunic on the corm1.

2Names across languages and lands

Each row names the species exactly as the source does; the colour tag shows how closely the finding relates to joghasem. All 47 Iranian local names are on the names map.

Certain

The source explicitly names C. haussknechtii.

Probable

Same local name and the species grows there, but the source records another species.

Relative

C. damascenus (= C. cancellatus subsp. damascenus), which Farhadi treats alongside joghasem as “Zagros saffron”.

Other species

A different wild crocus, shown only for cultural comparison — not joghasem.

NameLanguage / regionSpecies in sourceRecorded useLinkSource
jowqāsemجوقاسمPersian · GolpayeganC. haussknechtii, C. cancellatusCollected in spring; boiled in milk or roastedCertainIranica 1993
Pishog / Joo ghasemپیشوگ / جوغاسمKurdish & Persian · Dehloran and Abdanan, IlamC. haussknechtii Boiss.Flower: gastric antiseptic (medicinal)CertainGhasemi Pirbalouti 2013
Kifok, Pishokکیفۆک، پیشۆکKurdish · Hawraman & Mukriyan (Kurdistan, Kermanshah)C. haussknechtii “and possibly other Crocus spp.”Snack, roasted, added to milkCertainSulaiman et al. 2024
pešuk, pušek, pirźuk, piçek, çidam, çidân, jiqâllesmak… (47 names)Kurdish, Luri, Turkic, Persian · 12 provinces of western IranC. haussknechtiiFood, especially in famine yearsCertainFarhadi 2015
Pifok, Piçek, Pijok, Pişok, PivokSorani Kurdish · Southern Iraqi Kurdistan (Nineveh Plains to Garmian)C. biflorus “and possibly other Crocus spp.”Raw, after peeling the fibrous tunic; a “social snack”, still popular with young peopleProbablePieroni et al. 2019
çidam ← çiğdem ← çigidemOld Turkic (Uyghur Turfan texts, before 1000 CE)“a plant name” (species unknown)—ProbableNişanyan
Pîvok / HılhılêyeKurmanji Kurdish & Assyrian Arabic · Yeşilli, Mardin (Türkiye)C. cancellatus subsp. damascenusRaw after peeling; cultural importance index 0.61RelativeYeşil et al. 2019
ZafarânArabic · Damascus and other Syrian citiesC. cancellatus Herb.“The corm is edible, and sold in the streets of Damascus”RelativePost 1896, p. 771
Crocus edulis“edible crocus”Botanical Latin · Anti-Lebanon, Damascus= C. cancellatus β damascenusA scientific name that literally means “edible”RelativeBoissier 1882
karkom dameska’iכרכום דמשקאיHebrew · Negev Highlands (Mitzpe Ramon) and GolanC. cancellatus subsp. damascenusRare and legally protectedRelativehe.wikipedia
shuḥēm, baṭāṭ el-faqīr, bizzēzPalestinian Arabic · BethlehemC. hyemalisRoasted in March; plaited into wreaths for saleOther speciesCrowfoot 1932
çiğdem, kırmızı çiğdemTurkish · Aksaray, Central AnatoliaC. ancyrensisMost-eaten edible bulb; dug with a special iron tool, karlanguçOther speciesErtuğ 2000
Qusuǧese / PervocvetTat / Russian Molokans · Azerbaijan RepublicC. speciosusBoiled like potatoes (Tats); raw (Molokans)Other speciesPieroni & Sõukand 2019
ChikitenPontic Greeks · central ArmeniaCrocus sp.SnackOther speciesPieroni et al. 2021
Nothing found.

3What turned up outside Iran?

Main finding: no source outside Iran explicitly attributes a local name or food use to joghasem itself. The records are mostly herbarium specimens.

Iraq Probable

One herbarium specimen of joghasem from “Sefin Dag, Shaqlawa” (Erbil, Polunin 1958)15. Iraqi Kurdish names such as Pişok and Piçek match Farhadi’s Iranian Kurdish names, but that study records the species as C. biflorus9.

  • Specimens of the Damascus relative: Haji Omran, Khanaqin, Makhmur (1955–58)

Jordan Probable

On the Jordan plant checklist17; the only herbarium specimen is from Ras en-Naqb in the south16. Pieroni notes crocus corms are eaten in Jordan too, without naming the species.

  • C. naqabensis was described from the same area, so that specimen needs re-checking.

Syria & Lebanon Relative

Nothing on joghasem itself — but its Damascus relative was sold in the streets of Damascus in the 19th century11, and Boissier recorded the name C. edulis (“edible”) for it6.

Türkiye & Israel/Palestine Relative

Kurds and Assyrians of Mardin eat the Damascus relative raw10; in Israel the same taxon is rare and protected13.

i

A taxonomic caveat: Rukšāns (2015) identified all his western-Iranian and northern-Iraqi samples as C. damascenus and warned that “several different species” may hide under C. haussknechtii14. The line between “joghasem” and the “Damascus crocus” in older sources is not fully reliable.

4Timeline

From the first specimen to current research.

  1. 1867Haussknecht collects it on Mt Dalakhani above Sonqor5
  2. 1881Maw names it a variety of saffron: C. sativus var. haussknechtii4
  3. 1882Boissier treats it as a species in Flora Orientalis6
  4. 1896Post records Damascus-crocus corms sold in the streets of Damascus11
  5. 1958Polunin collects a specimen at Shaqlawa, Iraqi Kurdistan15
  6. 1975–77Flora Iranica (Wendelbo & Mathew) and Wendelbo’s Tulips and Irises of Iran; Mathew makes it a subspecies of C. pallasii4
  7. 1993Encyclopaedia Iranica records the name “jowqāsem” and how it is eaten2
  8. 2013First medicinal ethnobotany record, Ilam7
  9. 2015Morteza Farhadi’s article: about 50 local names and a range covering a quarter of Iran1
  10. 2018Nemati et al. restore it to species rank21
  11. 2019Saffron’s sole ancestor shown to be C. cartwrightianus, not joghasem22
  12. 2024Revision of Crocus in Iran (24 species)19; “Kifok/Pishok” recorded in Hawraman and Mukriyan8
  13. 2025Karyology: likely undescribed species under this name20; a study of corm drying methods24

5Poems, songs and texts

No poem in another language turned up that is explicitly about joghasem itself. What exists is either about the name (çiğdem = çidam) or about other wild crocuses.

«بهارَ، بهارَ، کنگرو پیشوک دیارَ»
“It’s spring, it’s spring — the wild artichoke and the pishuk are showing.” Sung by children of Pol-e Dokhtar and Chegeni (Lorestan) when the plants come up. Farhadi himself devoted five of the 46 poems in his collection In the Seasons of Difficult Laughter (1978) to this plant.
Joghasem Luri / Persian · Farhadi 2015
özlerdeki özeklerdeki yawa çigidem
“Mushrooms(?) and crocuses(?) in the valleys.” The exact meaning is uncertain. The oldest attestation of çiğdem, in Uyghur Buddhist texts from Turfan (before 1000 CE) — the same root as “çidam/çidân” in Azerbaijan and Zanjan.
Name Old Turkic · Nişanyan
Çiğdem der ki ben alayım
Yiğit başına belayım
“Çiğdem says: let me take it / I’m the bane of young men.” A Sivas folk song in which each flower boasts in turn. In Turkish, çiğdem covers both crocus and Colchicum.
Generic name Anatolian Turkish · turkuler.com
Çiğdem, çiğdem çiçecik,
Ebem oğlu küçecik…
The “çiğdem walk” rhyme of Yozgat: at Nowruz children dig the corms, collect oil and bulgur door to door, and cook çiğdem pilavı.
Other species Turkish · Yozgat
Fi Idar iqlaʻ el-shuhhem lēl u nahār
“In March, pull up crocus by day and by night.” Bethlehem children sang it while selling corm wreaths: after March the leaves wither and the plant can no longer be found.
C. hyemalis Palestinian Arabic · Crowfoot 1932
“The desert… shall blossom like the crocus.”
Isaiah 35:1. NIV, ESV and NRSV render the Hebrew ḥavaṣṣelet as “crocus”; the word is generic and points to no particular species.
Generic crocus Biblical Hebrew · BibleHub

6What science says today

All studies below were carried out explicitly on C. haussknechtii.

Corm chemistry

Samples from Lorestan (Gazeh, Ziba, Veysian) contain phenolic acids (chicoric, chlorogenic, syringic) and flavonoids (kaempferol, apigenin), with antibacterial activity23.

Drying the corm

Microwave drying at 440 W gave the best antioxidant capacity (96%) and is the method the study recommends24.

Stigmas

One study on wild Ilam samples reports more crocin than Torbat saffron, but its figures look implausible and need independent confirmation27.

Pharmacology (in vitro)

Corm extract was cytotoxic to breast-cancer cell lines, though weaker than saffron25; anti-angiogenic26, antimicrobial39 and wound-healing (in rats)38 effects have also been reported.

Genetics

DNA barcodes place it as saffron’s closest wild relative in Iran40, but it is not saffron’s ancestor22.

Cultivation

No published study was found — on growing it, on seed banking, or on basic nutrition (protein, starch). That gap is itself a research opportunity.

7Gaps and sources not yet read

These sources probably hold more, but their full text was not accessible.

Still to read

  • Full text of the 2024 revision of Crocus in Iran (Dolatyari et al.): provinces, IUCN category, Persian name19
  • Flora of Iraq, Iridaceae (Wendelbo 1985)
  • Tukan et al. 1998, wild edible plants of Jordan (which crocus, which Arabic name?)
  • Mouterde’s flora of Lebanon & Syria and Flora Palaestina
  • Traditional medical texts such as Tohfat al-Mo’menin

Searched, not found

  • A Kurdish poem or proverb using pishuk or pîvok
  • Crocus corms as food in the Mishnah or Talmud
  • çiğdem in Kashgari’s Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk
  • A specific verse by Yunus Emre, Karacaoğlan or Samad Vurgun
  • A global IUCN assessment of this species
  • An entry for joghasem, jowqāsem or pishuk in the Dehkhoda, Moein or Amid dictionaries

8References

References 1–10 and 28–30 were opened directly and checked against the original text.

  1. Farhadi, M. et al. (1393/2015). Jighal-esmak (Jughasem, Pishuk, Piquk, Chidam, Chidan…): ethnobotany and phytogeography of a plant in Iran. Quarterly of Social Sciences 67, Allameh Tabataba’i University. — qjss.atu.ac.ir · ensani.ir. Companion paper: “Golkhoshnasi” (anthecology) of a gol-e hasrat species: Joghasem (no. 63). About the author: Wikipedia (fa)
  2. Alam, H. (1993). “Crocus.” Encyclopaedia Iranica VI/4. — iranicaonline.org
  3. POWO, Kew: Crocus haussknechtii. — powo.science.kew.org
  4. IPNI records: C. sativus var. haussknechtii; C. pallasii subsp. haussknechtii
  5. JACQ: isotype, Haussknecht 913a, JE 00013562. — jacq.org
  6. Boissier, E. (1882). Flora Orientalis 5: 100–102. — archive.org
  7. Ghasemi Pirbalouti, A. et al. (2013). Medicinal plants used by Kurd tribe in Dehloran and Abdanan, Ilam. Afr J Tradit Complement Altern Med 10:368. — PMC3746586
  8. Sulaiman, N. et al. (2024). Cultural vs. State Borders: Plant Foraging by Hawraman and Mukriyan Kurds in Western Iran. Plants 13:1048. — PMC11013122
  9. Pieroni, A. et al. (2019). Where tulips and crocuses are popular food snacks… Southern Iraqi Kurdistan. J Ethnobiol Ethnomed 15:59. — PMC6882212
  10. Yeşil, Y., Çelik, M., Yılmaz, B. (2019). Wild edible plants in Yeşilli (Mardin). J Ethnobiol Ethnomed 15:52. — PMC6833206
  11. Post, G.E. (1896). Flora of Syria, Palestine and Sinai, p. 771. — archive.org
  12. POWO: Crocus damascenus. — powo.science.kew.org
  13. he.wikipedia: כרכום דמשקאי. — he.wikipedia.org
  14. Rukšāns, J. (2015). International Rock Gardener 61. — srgc.org.uk
  15. GBIF: RBGE specimen, Sefin Dag, Shaqlawa (Iraq), 1958. — gbif.org
  16. GBIF: Kew specimen K002968189, Ras en-Naqb (Jordan). — gbif.org
  17. Jordan plant checklist (ODU). — odu.edu
  18. Tabasi, Mehrabian & Sayadi (2021). Folia Oecologica 48(2):156–168. — sciendo.com
  19. Dolatyari, A. et al. (2024). A taxonomic revision of the genus Crocus in Iran. Nordic J Bot. — doi:10.1111/njb.04270 · abstract
  20. Dolatyari, A. (2025). Caryologia 78(2). — fupress.net
  21. Nemati, Z. et al. (2018). Mol Phylogenet Evol 127. — doi
  22. Nemati, Z. et al. (2019). Saffron's sole progenitor: C. cartwrightianus. Mol Phylogenet Evol. — doi
  23. Moudi et al. (2020). J Saffron Research. — jsr.birjand.ac.ir
  24. Salehi et al. (2025). Drying of Joghasem corm. — jift.irost.ir
  25. Shakeri et al. (2019). Res J Pharmacognosy. — rjpharmacognosy.ir
  26. Mosaddegh et al. (2015). Res J Pharmacognosy. — rjpharmacognosy.ir
  27. Stigma HPLC study, Ilam vs. Torbat. J Medicinal Plants & By-products. — jmpb.areeo.ac.ir
  28. Nişanyan Sözlük: çiğdem. — nisanyansozluk.com
  29. TDK Güncel Türkçe Sözlük: çiğdem. — sozluk.gov.tr
  30. Ertuğ, F. (2000). An ethnobotanical study in Central Anatolia. Economic Botany 54(2):155–182. — springer
  31. Pieroni, A. & Sõukand, R. (2019). Central Azerbaijan. Genet Resour Crop Evol 66:1495–1513. — pdf
  32. Pieroni, A. et al. (2021). Armenia. Environ Dev Sustain 23:2358–2381. — pdf
  33. Crowfoot, G. & Baldensperger, L. (1932). From Cedar to Hyssop. — folkmasa.org
  34. Türkü “Çiğdem der ki ben alayım”. — turkuler.com
  35. Yozgat “çiğdem pilavı” tradition. — heryonuyleyozgat.com
  36. Wikipedia: Wild edible plants of Israel and Palestine. — wikipedia
  37. Isaiah 35:1, parallel translations. — biblehub.com
  38. Ashja Zadeh et al. (2020). Bull Emerg Trauma. — beat.sums.ac.ir
  39. Hashemi et al. (2017). Saffron Agronomy & Technology. — torbath.ac.ir
  40. Aghighiravan et al. (2019). DNA barcoding. — umz.ac.ir

Based on the research of Dr Morteza Farhadi

Professor of anthropology, Allameh Tabataba’i University. The core of this report — the names, the range and the beliefs surrounding joghasem — comes from his fieldwork and that of his student collaborators: Siavash Amini, Tayeb Khaledi, Morteza Rashidi, Shoja Amiri, Afshin Shiravand, Iraj Jamshidi, Fahd Kamalvandi, Ali Gavarsini, Amir Moradi, Ms Jalilian and Akram Ahmadi Daramroudi.

Article “Jighal-esmak” (Persian)Companion article (Persian)About Dr Farhadi

International sources compiled and designed by Pishuk · DoNode Studio. Other researchers whose work is used are credited in the references.