Rubia is the type genus of the Rubiaceae family of flowering plants, which also contains coffee. It contains around 80 species of perennial scrambling or climbing herbs and subshrubs native to the Old World. The genus and its best-known species are commonly known as madder, e.g. Rubia tinctorum, Rubia peregrina, and Rubia cordifolia.
Alizarin is an organic compound with formula C
14H
8O
4 that has been used throughout history as a prominent red dye, principally for dyeing textile fabrics. Historically it was derived from the roots of plants of the madder genus. In 1869, it became the first natural dye to be produced synthetically.
Ampelopsis, commonly known as peppervine or porcelainberry, is a genus of climbing shrubs, in the grape family Vitaceae. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek: ἅμπελος (ampelos), which means "vine". The genus was named in 1803. It is disjunctly distributed in eastern Asia and eastern North America extending to Mexico. Ampelopsis is primarily found in mountainous regions in temperate zones with some species in montane forests at mid-altitudes in subtropical to tropical regions. Ampelopsis glandulosa is a popular garden plant and an invasive weed.
Polygonatum, also known as King Solomon's-seal or Solomon's seal, is a genus of flowering plants. In the APG III classification system, it is placed in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Nolinoideae. It has also been classified in the former family Convallariaceae and, like many lilioid monocots, was formerly classified in the lily family, Liliaceae. The genus is distributed throughout the temperate Northern Hemisphere. Most of the approximately 63 species occur in Asia, with 20 endemic to China.
Chrysosplenium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Saxifragaceae. It includes 84 species found throughout the Arctic and northern temperate parts of the Northern Hemisphere. The highest species diversity in eastern Asia, and two species are found disjunctly in northern South America.
Disporum is a genus of about 20 species of perennial flowering plants, found in Asia from northern India to Japan, south to Indonesia and north into the Russian Far East.
Rubia cordifolia, known as Indian madder, is a species of flowering plant in the coffee family, Rubiaceae. It has been cultivated for a red pigment derived from roots.
Turkey red is a dyeing methods that was widely used to give cotton a distinctive bright red colour in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was made using the root of the rubia (madder) plant, through a long and laborious process which originated in the historical Levant region, namely being developed in India and China. Turkey red was brought to Europe in the 1740s and in France was known as rouge d'Andrinople.
Hololeion is a genus of East Asian flowering plants in the family Asteraceae. It is native to Japan, Korea, China, and the Russian Far East.
Notoseris is a genus of Asian flowering plants in the tribe Cichorieae within the family Asteraceae. The plants are native to Asia, primarily China.
Rubia tinctorum, the rose madder or common madder or dyer's madder, is a herbaceous perennial plant species belonging to the bedstraw and coffee family Rubiaceae.
Artemisia argyi, commonly known as silvery wormwood or Chinese mugwort, is a herbaceous perennial plant with a creeping rhizome. It is native to China, Korea, Mongolia, Japan, and the Russian Far East. It is known in Chinese as àicǎo or ài yè or ài hao, in Japanese as Chōsen yomogi and in Korean as Hwanghae ssuk. It is used in herbal medicine for conditions of the liver, spleen and kidney.
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.
Rubia peregrina, the common wild madder, is a herbaceous perennial plant species belonging to the bedstraw and coffee family Rubiaceae.
Elsholtzia is a plant genus in the Lamiaceae. It is widespread across much of temperate and tropical Asia from Siberia south to China, Northeastern India, Indonesia, etc. The genus was named in honour of the Prussian naturalist Johann Sigismund Elsholtz.
- Elsholtzia amurensisProb. - Amur region of Russia
- Elsholtzia angustifolia(Loes.) Kitag. - Korea, Manchuria
- Elsholtzia argyiH.Lév. - southern China, Vietnam
- Elsholtzia beddomeiC.B.Clarke ex Hook.f. - Myanmar, Thailand
- Elsholtzia blanda(Benth.) Benth. - southern China, Himalayas, Indochina, Sumatra, Viet Nam
- Elsholtzia bodinieriVaniot - Guizhou, Yunnan
- Elsholtzia byeonsanensisM.Kim - South Korea
- Elsholtzia capituligeraC.Y.Wu - Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan
- Elsholtzia cephalanthaHand.-Mazz. - Sichuan
- Elsholtzia ciliata(Thunb.) Hyl. - widespread across Siberia, Russian Far East, China, India, Himalayas, Japan, Korea, Indochina
- Elsholtzia communis(Collett & Hemsl.) Diels - Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam
- Elsholtzia concinnaVautier - Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan
- Elsholtzia cyprianii(Pavol.) C.Y.Wu & S.Chow - central + southern China
- Elsholtzia densaBenth. - India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Tibet, Xinjiang, China, Mongolia
- Elsholtzia eriocalyxC.Y.Wu & S.C.Huang - southern China
- Elsholtzia eriostachya(Benth.) Benth. - China, Tibet, Himalayas
- Elsholtzia feddeiH.Lév - China, Tibet
- Elsholtzia flavaBenth. - China, Himalayas
- Elsholtzia fruticosa(D.Don) Rehder - China, Himalayas, Tibet, Myanmar
- Elsholtzia glabraC.Y.Wu & S.C.Huang - China
- Elsholtzia griffithiiHook.f - Myanmar, Assam
- Elsholtzia hallasanensisY.N.Lee - Jeju-do Island in Korea
- Elsholtzia heterophyllaDiels - Yunnan, Myanmar
- Elsholtzia hunanensisHand.-Mazz. - southern China
- Elsholtzia kachinensisPrain - southern China, Myanmar, Thailand
- Elsholtzia litangensisC.X.Pu & W.Y.Chen - Sichuan
- Elsholtzia luteolaDiels - Sichuan, Yunnan
- Elsholtzia minimaNakai - Jeju-do Island in Korea
- Elsholtzia myosurusDunn - Sichuan, Yunnan
- Elsholtzia nipponicaOhwi - Japan
- Elsholtzia ochroleucaDunn - Sichuan, Yunnan
- Elsholtzia oldhamiiHemsl. - Taiwan
- Elsholtzia pendulifloraW.W.Sm - Yunnan, Thailand, Vietnam
- Elsholtzia pilosa(Benth.) Benth. - China, Himalayas, Myanmar, Vietnam
- Elsholtzia pubescensBenth. - Java, Bali, Lombok, Timor, Sulawesi
- Elsholtzia pygmaeaW.W.Sm. - Yunnan
- Elsholtzia rugulosaHemsl - southern China, Myanmar, Thailand
- Elsholtzia serotinaKom - northern China, Japan, Korea, Primorye
- Elsholtzia soulieiH.Lév. - Sichuan, Yunnan
- Elsholtzia splendensNakai ex F.Maek. - China, Korea
- Elsholtzia stachyodes(Link) Raizada & H.O.Saxena - Indian Subcontinent, China, Myanmar
- Elsholtzia stauntoniiBenth. - northern China
- Elsholtzia strobilifera(Benth.) Benth. - China, Himalayas, Myanmar
- Elsholtzia winitianaCraib - Yunnan, Guangxi, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam
Augustin Abel Hector Léveillé was a French botanist and clergyman.
Disporum longistylum, called the long-styled disporum, is a species of flowering plant in the fairy bells genus Disporum, native to Assam, Tibet, and central China. Its cultivar 'Night Heron' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Pseudocayratia is a genus of Asian vine plants in the family Vitaceae. As its name suggests, it was split from the previously configured genus Cayratia, which was found not be monophyletic: for example, Pseudocayratia oligocarpa, from central China to Vietnam, was distinct from Cayratia pedata. Species have been recorded from central-southern China, Japan, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan and Vietnam.
Carex erythrobasis, the red-based leaf sedge, is a species of flowering plant in the family Cyperaceae, native to Manchuria, Korea, and Primorsky Krai in Russia. It is found in the understory of both broadleaf and Korean pine forests.
