Morphological traits and aromatic profile of Crocus biflorus Mill.

With the aim of characterizing from a morphological and aromatic point of view, C. biflorus Mill., a trial was carried out in 2016 collecting flowers of wild C. biflorus in three sites of southern Italy (Randazzo, CT; Cesarò, ME; Samo, RC) with different altitudes (930, 970 and 1271 m a.s.l., respectively), environmental and climatic conditions. Perigone external segments, stigmas and anthers were measured and perigones, stigmas and anthers were weighed. Concerning the phytochemical investigation, we have focused our interest toward the aromatic profile of stigmas. Therefore, we have adopted the same procedure applied in the saffron analyses, using the SPME methodology combined with GC-FID and GC-MS. In the three sites, the length of perigone external segments ranged from 29.7 to 34.5 mm, stigma length from 9.7 to 11.7 mm and anthers from 10.5 to 11.7 mm. Unitary perigone dry weight ranged from 27.8 to 36.5 mg, unitary stigmas dry weight from 0.6 to 1.0 mg, while anthers from 2.7 to 4.5 mg. The heaviest stigmas were recorded in the high altitude environment, while the heaviest anthers in the intermediate environment. The analyses of the aromatic components evidenced a similar profile for the samples: safranal (25-33%), α-isophorone (23-33%), ketoisophorone (10-14%) and 4-methylene isophorone (7-11%). Specifically, the samples collected in Randazzo and Cesarò, two neighbouring Sicilian localities, appear similar, instead the sample collected in Samo shows some differences. This is a first report on the morphological and phytochemical analysis of this species, further analyses will be necessary to establish similarities with the saffron and other wild Crocus species.