Purification and some characteristics of precarthamin, a precursor of carthamin, isolated from the florets of Carthamus tinctorius L.

An unstable flame-coloured pigment, tentatively named precarthamin, was isolated as orange-yellow microneedles with 0.12% yield from the yellow florets of Carthamus tinctorius L. through many purifying steps. The precarthamin could be enzymically converted to a red pigment, which was identified as carthamin by its chromatographic and spectral properties. The content of precarthamin was examined at the various growth stages of the Carthamus flowers.