See Botany Index. The carthamus tinctorius is at present cultivated in many parts of Europe, and also in the Levant, from whence great quantities of it are annually imported into Britain for the purpose of dyeing and painting. The good quality of this commodity is in the colour, which is of a bright saffron hue; and in this the British carthamus very often fails; for if there happens much rain during the time the plants are in flower, the flowers change to a dark or dirty yellow, as they likewise do if the flowers are gathered with any moisture remaining upon them.—The seeds of carthamus have been celebrated as a cathartic; but they operate very slowly, and for the most part disorder the stomach and bowels, especially when given in substance: triturated with distilled aromatic waters, they form an emulsion less offensive, yet inferior in efficacy to the more common purgatives. They are eaten by a species of Egyptian parrot, which is very fond of them; to other birds or beasts they would prove a mortal poison.