Red gold: The world's most expensive spice - Carolyn Beans

saffron

a bright yellow powder made from crocus flowers, used in cooking as a spice and to give colour to food

chromosome

one of the very small structures like thin strings in the nuclei (= central parts) of animal and plant cells. Chromosomes carry the genes.

propagate

​[transitive, intransitive] (something) (specialist) to produce new plants from a parent plant

tinge something (with something)

to add a small amount of colour to something

purport to be/have something

to claim to be something or to have done something, when this may not be true

synonym profess

aphrodisiac

​a food or drug that is said to give people a strong desire to have sex