Boraginaceae, the borage or forget-me-notfamily, includes about 2,000 species of shrubs, trees, and herbs in 146 to 156 genera with a worldwide distribution.
Isatis tinctoria, also called woad, dyer's woad, or glastum, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae with a documented history of use as a blue dye and medicinal plant. Its genus name, Isatis, derives from the ancient Greek word for the plant, ἰσάτις. It is occasionally known as Asp of Jerusalem. Woad is also the name of a blue dye produced from the leaves of the plant. Woad is native to the steppe and desert zones of the Caucasus, Central Asia to Eastern Siberia and Western Asia but is now also found in South-Eastern and Central Europe and western North America.
A lake pigment is a pigment made by precipitating a dye with an inert binder, or mordant, usually a metallic salt. Unlike vermilion, ultramarine, and other pigments made from ground minerals, lake pigments are organic. Manufacturers and suppliers to artists and industry frequently omit the lake designation in the name. Many lake pigments are fugitive because the dyes involved are not lightfast. Red lakes were particularly important in Renaissance and Baroque paintings; they were often used as translucent glazes to portray the colors of rich fabrics and draperies.
Morinda tinctoria, commonly known as aal or Indian mulberry, is a species of flowering plant in the family Rubiaceae, native to southern Asia.
The genus Anchusa belongs to the borage family (Boraginaceae). It includes about 35 species found growing in Europe, North Africa, South Africa and Western Asia. They are introduced in the United States.
Pentaglottis is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Boraginaceae. It is represented by a single species, Pentaglottis sempervirens, commonly known as the green alkanet, evergreen bugloss or alkanet, and is a bristly, perennial plant native to southwestern Europe, in northwest Iberia and France. It grows to approximately 60 cm (24") to 90 cm (36"), usually in damp or shaded places and often close to buildings. It has brilliant blue flowers, and retains its green leaves through the winter. The plant has difficulty growing in acidic soil. The name "alkanet" is also used for dyer's bugloss and common bugloss. Green alkanet is an introduced species in the British Isles.
Turnsole, katasol, or folium was a dyestuff prepared from the annual plant Chrozophora tinctoria.
Genista tinctoria, the dyer's greenweed or dyer's broom, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae. Its other common names include dyer's whin, waxen woad and waxen wood. The Latin specific epithet tinctoria means "used as a dye".
Anchusa azurea is a species of flowering plant in the family Boraginaceae, known by the common names garden anchusa and Italian bugloss. It is a bristly perennial that may reach 1.5 meters tall and 60 centimeters wide. It has straight lance-shaped leaves and petite tubular flowers about 15 millimeters across with five bright violet-blue petals. These flowers, which typically appear in May–July, are edible and attract bees. This species is native to Europe, western Asia, and eastern Maghreb but is well-known elsewhere as a noxious weed. In Crete, it is called agoglossos and the locals eat the tender stems boiled, steamed, or fried.
Alkanet is the common name of several related plants in the borage family (Boraginaceae):
In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typically distinguishes herbs from spices. Herbs generally refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant, while spices are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, bark, roots and fruits.
Mallotus philippensis is a plant in the spurge family. It is known as the kamala tree or red kamala or kumkum tree, due to the fruit covering, which produces a red dye. However, it must be distinguished from kamala meaning "lotus" in many Indian languages, an unrelated plant, flower, and sometimes metonymic spiritual or artistic concept. Mallotus philippensis has many other local names. This kamala often appears in rainforest margins. Or in disturbed areas free from fire, in moderate to high rainfall areas.
Alkannin is a natural dye that is obtained from the extracts of plants from the borage family Alkanna tinctoria that are found in the south of France. The dye is used as a food colouring and in cosmetics. It is used as a red-brown food additive in regions such as Australia. Alkannin is deep red in an acid and blue in an alkaline environment. The chemical structure as a naphthoquinone derivative was first determined by Brockmann in 1936. The R-enantiomer of alkannin is known as shikonin, and the racemic mixture of the two is known as shikalkin.
Natural dyes are dyes or colorants derived from plants, invertebrates, or minerals. The majority of natural dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources—roots, berries, bark, leaves, and wood—and other biological sources such as fungi.
Dyeing is the craft of imparting colors to textiles in loose fiber, yarn, cloth or garment form by treatment with a dye. Archaeologists have found evidence of textile dyeing with natural dyes dating back to the Neolithic period. In China, dyeing with plants, barks and insects has been traced back more than 5,000 years. Natural insect dyes such as Tyrian purple and kermes and plant-based dyes such as woad, indigo and madder were important elements of the economies of Asia and Europe until the discovery of man-made synthetic dyes in the mid-19th century. Synthetic dyes quickly superseded natural dyes for the large-scale commercial textile production enabled by the industrial revolution, but natural dyes remained in use by traditional cultures around the world.
Echium italicum, the Italian viper's bugloss, Lady Campbell weed, or pale bugloss, is a species of plant from the family Boraginaceae, found in the Mediterranean Basin and, as an introduced species in the United States.
Lithospermum erythrorhizon, commonly called purple gromwell, red stoneroot, red gromwell, red-root gromwell and redroot lithospermum, is a plant species in the family Boraginaceae. It is called zǐcǎo (紫草) in Chinese, jichi (지치) in Korean, and murasaki in Japanese.
Arnebia densiflora, (also called Macrotomia cephalotes) is a plant species belonging to the family Boraginaceae. It is native to Greece and Turkey. Arnebia densiflora has been investigated for its wound-healing abilities.
Anchusa strigosa is a non-succulent species of herbaceous plants in the Boraginaceae family endemic to the Eastern Mediterranean regions, particularly, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan, and Iran. It is known widely by its common names of strigose bugloss and prickly alkanet.
Anchusa capensis, is a species of flowering plant in the family Boraginaceae, native to Namibia, South Africa and Lesotho. The genus Anchusa is from the Greek word anchousa, which makes reference to its use as a dye base for cosmetic paint obtained from the roots of another plant in the genus Anchusa tinctoria. The species capensis translates to ‘from the Cape’ referring to South Africa
