Saffron (Crocus sativus) is the most valuable and indigenous crop in Iran. Stigmas of this plant are used as a popular natural flavouring, colouring and medicine. However, due to high profit, the market suffers fraudulent activities where the saffron stigma is often mixed with safflower petals. Identification of these frauds with conventional and biochemical methods is difficult with low sensitivity; therefore, the employment of molecular markers such as RAPD/SCAR is being considered as a viable solution. In this study, DNA was extracted from dry stigmas of 5 saffron accessions and dry petals of 7 safflower cultivars. RAPD reactions with ten 15-mer random primers resulted in two specific monomorph bands (500 and 700bp) for safflower without any band in saffron. These bands were cloned in suitable vectors and sequenced. PCR analysis with specific SCAR primers amplified two specific bands (414 and 589 bp) for safflowers in different combination of saffron stigmas and safflower petals even in low combination (2.5 %). So this method is suitable for identification of safflower petal frauds in commercial saffron stigmas.

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