Rubia tinctorum

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Rubia tinctorum
Rubia tinctorum flowers.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Gentianales
Family: Rubiaceae
Genus: Rubia
Species:
R. tinctorum
Binomial name
Rubia tinctorum
L.

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.

Contents

Description

Rubia tinctorum - Kohler-s Medizinal-Pflanzen-123.jpg

The common madder can grow up to 1.5 m in height. The evergreen leaves are approximately 5–10 cm long and 2–3 cm broad, produced in whorls of 4–7 starlike around the central stem. It climbs with tiny hooks at the leaves and stems. The flowers are small (3–5 mm across), with five pale yellow petals, in dense racemes, and appear from June to August, followed by small (4–6 mm diameter) red to black berries. The roots can be over a metre long, up to 12 mm thick and the source of red dyes known as rose madder and Turkey red . It prefers loamy soils (sand and clay soil) with a constant level of moisture. Madder is used as a food plant by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including the hummingbird hawk moth.

Uses

Naturally dyed skeins made with madder root, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, USA Naturally dyed skeins.jpg
Naturally dyed skeins made with madder root, Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, USA

It has been used since ancient times as a vegetable red dye for leather, wool, cotton and silk. For dye production, the roots are harvested after two years. The outer red layer gives the common variety of the dye, the inner yellow layer the refined variety. The dye is fixed to the cloth with help of a mordant, most commonly alum. Madder can be fermented for dyeing as well (Fleurs de garance). In France, the remains were used to produce a spirit[ citation needed ].

The roots contain the acid ruberthyrin. By drying, fermenting, or a treatment with acids, this is changed to sugar, alizarin and purpurin, which were first isolated by the French chemist Pierre Jean Robiquet in 1826. Purpurin is normally not coloured, but is red when dissolved in alkaline solutions. Mixed with clay and treated with alum and ammonia, it gives a brilliant red colourant (madder lake).

The pulverised roots can be dissolved in sulfuric acid, which leaves a dye called garance (the French name for madder) after drying. Another method of increasing the yield consisted of dissolving the roots in sulfuric acid after they had been used for dyeing. This produces a dye called garanceux . By treating the pulverized roots with alcohol, colorine was produced. It contained 40–50 times the amount of alizarin of the roots.[ citation needed ]

The chemical name for the pigment is alizarin, of the anthraquinone-group, and was used to make the alizarine ink in 1855 by Professor Leonhardi of Dresden, Germany. In 1869, the German chemists Graebe and Liebermann synthesised artificial alizarin, which was produced industrially from 1871 onwards, effectively ending the cultivation of madder. In the 20th century, madder was only grown in some areas of France.[ citation needed ]

The plant's roots contain several polyphenolic compounds, such as 1,3-Dihydroxyanthraquinone (purpuroxanthin), 1,4-Dihydroxyanthraquinone (quinizarin), 1,2,4-Trihydroxyanthraquinone (purpurin) and 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone (alizarin). This last compound gives it its red colour to a textile dye known as Rose madder. It was also used as a colourant, especially for paint, that is referred to as madder lake. The substance was also derived from another species, Rubia cordifolia .

History

Early evidence of dyeing comes from India where a piece of cotton dyed with madder has been recovered from the archaeological site at Mohenjo-daro (3rd millennium BCE). [1] In Sanskrit, this plant is known by the name Manjishtha. It was used by hermits to dye their clothes saffron. Dioscorides and Pliny the Elder (De Re Natura) mention the plant (which the Romans called rubia passiva). In Viking Age levels of York, remains of both woad and madder have been excavated. The oldest European textiles dyed with madder come from the grave of the Merovingian queen Arnegundis in Saint-Denis near Paris (between 565 and 570 AD). [2] In the "Capitulare de villis" of Charlemagne, madder is mentioned as "warentiam". The herbal of Hildegard of Bingen mentions the plant as well. The red coats of the British Redcoats were dyed with madder; earlier and perhaps officer's fabric being dyed with the better but more expensive cochineal. [3] Madder is mentioned in the Talmud (e.g., tractate Sabbath 66b) where the madder plant is termed "puah" in Aramaic.

Turkey red was a strong, very fast red dye for cotton obtained from madder root via a complicated multistep process involving "sumac and oak galls, calf's blood, sheep's dung, oil, soda, alum, and a solution of tin." [4] Turkey red was developed in India and spread to Turkey. Greek workers familiar with the methods of its production were brought to France in 1747, and Dutch and English spies soon discovered the secret. A sanitized version of Turkey red was being produced in Manchester by 1784, and roller-printed dress cottons with a Turkey red ground were fashionable in England by the 1820s. [5] [6]

Folk medicine

According to Culpeper's herbal, the plant is "an herb of Mars" and "hath an opening quality, and afterwards to bind and strengthen". The root was recommended in the treatment of yellow jaundice, obstruction of the spleen, the melancholy humour, palsy, sciatica, and of bruises. The leaves were advised for women “ that have not their courses ” and for the treatment of freckles and other discolorations of the skin. [7] [ non-primary source needed ]

Risks

Madder root may cause birth defects and miscarriages in humans when taken internally. [8]

Related Research Articles

<i>Rubia</i> Genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alizarin</span> Chemical compound and histologic stain

Alizarin is an organic compound with formula C
14
H
8
O
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.

<i>Sherardia</i> Genus and species of flowering plant

Sherardia is a monotypic genus of flowering plants in the family Rubiaceae. The genus contains only one species, Sherardia arvensis, the (blue) field madder, which is widespread across most of Europe and northern Africa as well as southwest and central Asia and Macaronesia. It is also reportedly naturalized in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Kerguelen, Ethiopia, Sudan, southern Africa, Mexico, Costa Rica, South America, Bermuda, Cuba, Haiti and much of Canada and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1,2,4-Trihydroxyanthraquinone</span> Chemical compound

1,2,4-Trihydroxyanthraquinone, commonly called purpurin, is an anthraquinone. It is a naturally occurring red/yellow dye. It is formally derived from 9,10-anthraquinone by replacement of three hydrogen atoms by hydroxyl (OH) groups.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rose madder</span> Red paint made from the madder plant

Rose madder is a red paint made from the pigment madder lake, a traditional lake pigment extracted from the common madder plant Rubia tinctorum.

<i>Rubia cordifolia</i> Species of flowering plant

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1,3-Dihydroxyanthraquinone</span> Chemical compound

1,3-Dihydroxyanthraquinone, also called purpuroxanthin or xanthopurpurin, is an organic compound with formula C
14
H
8
O
4
that occurs in the plant Rubia cordifolia. It is one of ten dihydroxyanthraquinone isomers. Its molecular structure can be viewed as being derived from anthraquinone by replacement of two hydrogen atoms (H) by hydroxyl groups (-OH).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1,4-Dihydroxyanthraquinone</span> Chemical compound

1,4-Dihydroxyanthraquinone, also called quinizarin or Solvent Orange 86, is an organic compound derived from anthroquinone. Quinizarin is an orange or red-brown crystalline powder. It is formally derived from anthraquinone by replacement of two hydrogen atoms by hydroxyl (OH) groups. It is one of ten dihydroxyanthraquinone isomers and occurs in small amounts in the root of the madder plant, Rubia tinctorum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthraquinone dyes</span>

Anthraquinone dyes are an abundant group of dyes comprising a anthraquinone unit as the shared structural element. Anthraquinone itself is colourless, but red to blue dyes are obtained by introducing electron donor groups such as hydroxy or amino groups in the 1-, 4-, 5- or 8-position. Anthraquinone dyestuffs are structurally related to indigo dyestuffs and are classified together with these in the group of carbonyl dyes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Natural dye</span> Dye extracted from plant or animal sources

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of dyeing terms</span>

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.

<i>Rubia peregrina</i> Species of flowering plant in the coffee and madder family Rubiaceae

Rubia peregrina, the common wild madder, is a herbaceous perennial plant species belonging to the bedstraw and coffee family Rubiaceae.

DOBAG is the Turkish acronym for "Doğal Boya Araştırma ve Geliştirme Projesi". The project aims at reviving the traditional Turkish art and craft of carpet weaving. It provides inhabitants of a rural village in Anatolia – mostly female – with a regular source of income. The DOBAG initiative marks the return of the traditional rug production by using hand-spun wool dyed with natural colours, which was subsequently adopted in other rug-producing countries.

Kotpad Handloom is a vegetable-dyed fabric woven by the tribal weavers of the Mirgan community of Kotpad village in Koraput district, Odisha, India. Cotton sarees with solid border and Pata Anchal, duppatta with typical Buties / motifs, Scolrfs on cotton, silk, handloom stoles, and dress materials are all dyed with organic dyes. The natural dye is manufactured from the aul tree grown in this area. The Kotpad tussar silk saree with tribal art and Kotpad handloom fabrics with natural color is its specialty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Garance</span> Name list

Garance is a given name that is derived from Garance des teinturiers, which is the French name of the plant Rubia tinctorum. It also refers to the deep red color, also known as rose madder, from the dye derived from the plant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alizarin Red S</span> Chemical compound and histologic dye

Alizarin Red S is a water-soluble sodium salt of Alizarin sulfonic acid with a chemical formula of C
14
H
7
NaO
7
S
. Alizarin Red S was discovered by Graebe and Libermann in 1871. In the field of histology alizarin Red S is used to stain calcium deposits in tissues, and in geology to stain and differentiate carbonate minerals.

Salu is a type of twill cloth, woven from cotton and dyed red, originally made in India. Prior to the introduction of modern industrial techniques, it was produced exclusively hand spun (khaddar) yarns with locally-available dyes. Salu is one of seven cotton cloths explicitly mentioned in the 16th century Mughal record Ain-i-Akbari, together with khasa, tansukh, doriya, bafta, dupatta, and panchtoliya.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red pigments</span> Materials used to make red colors in painting

Red pigments are materials, usually made from minerals, used to create the red colors in painting and other arts. The color of red and other pigments is determined by the way it absorbs certain parts of the spectrum of visible light and reflects the others. The brilliant opaque red of vermillion, for example, results because vermillion reflects the major part of red light, but absorbs the blue, green and yellow parts of white light.

References

  1. H. C. Bhardwaj & K. K. Jain (1982). "Indian dyes and dyeing industry during 18th–19th century" (PDF). Indian Journal of History of Science . New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy. 17 (11): 70–81. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-01-14.
  2. Desrosiers, Sophie; Rast-Eicher, Antoinette (September 2012). "Luxurious Merovingian Textiles Excavated from Burials in the Saint Denis Basilica, France in the 6th-7th Century". Textiles and Politics: Textile Society of America 13th Biennial Symposium Proceedings: 3.
  3. "Where did the Redcoat red dye come from?". The First Foot Guards. Retrieved 15 February 2011.
  4. Jill Goodwin (1982). A Dyer's Manual. Pelham Books. p. 65. ISBN   978-0-7207-1327-5.
  5. John Cannon & Margaret Cannon (2002). Dye Plants and Dyeing (2nd ed.). A & C Black. pp. 76, 80. ISBN   978-0-7136-6374-7.
  6. Jane Tozer & Sarah Levitt (1983). Fabric of Society: A Century of People and their Clothes 1770–1870 . Laura Ashley Press. pp.  29–30. ISBN   978-0-9508913-0-9.
  7. Culpeper's Herbal: Madder at bibliomania.com
  8. Madder, WebMD.

Further reading