Jo Ghassem (Crocus Haussknechtii): Anthropological and Typological Botany of Colchicum

Ethnobotany is a young and extradisciplinary branch of anthropology specifically in the field of traditional knowledge and technology. The field of traditional knowledge and technology is a product of thousands years of human experience in relation to himself, others (society), and the nature in the context of history and local, regional, and global culture. A small part of this experience has been written in the age of writing, but the main part, due to various reasons, has remained unwritten and confined to the sphere of oral history. Indeed, the tacit knowledge of this experience has been an unconscious and inapprehensible one. Ethnobotany describes the relationship between humans and plants. Plant ethology is an emerging sub-branch of ethnobotany that is the intersection of different scientific fields, especially social sciences. As an interdisciplinary field, it also interacts with other areas of human knowledge such as philosophy and art. Plant ethology is not only concerned with the behaviors of plants, but also with how plants arerepresented and reflected in the rhetorical space of poets, writings of humans, folklore, and cultural space.Jo Ghassem is a wonderful plant that grows in a few certain parts of Iran, including Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Ilam, Central Province, and some areas of Isfahan. It has saved the lives of many residents of these regions as well as some parts of Iraq and Turkey being at risk of drought and famine. The present research is an ethnographical study on Jo Ghassem, and the author aims to share the results of his comprehensive studies on wildflowers in Iran as well as his cognitive perceptions of this small but humble plant.