(This is the online version of the paper booklet available at ticket offices in the Garden.)
What are plant dyes?
Natural dyes are colours extracted from plants, invertebrates or minerals. Most natural dyes come from plants. According to archaeological evidence, dyeing with plants has been practised for thousands of years and probably developed during the Neolithic period (12,000 – 4,200 years ago), when people started storing seeds and fruit.
The process of dyeing has essentially stayed the same over time. Typically, the plant material is added to hot water and heated to extract the dye compounds. If dyeing textiles, the fabric is added to the pot and kept at heat or allowed to steep until the desired colour is achieved. Many plant dyes require substances called mordants (from Latin mordere ‘to bite’) to bind to textile fibres.
Historically, the most common mordants were metal salts, such as alum and iron sulphate. As well as fixing dyes to fibres, mordants can also change the colour of the dye. Ink can be made from a dye solution by adding a binder, for example gum arabic (a gum exuded by some Acacia plants). There are many ways to make paints, but in general the dye solution is combined with an inert substrate, for example chalk, to form an insoluble pigment, which is then added to a binder to make a paint.
Natural dyes were exclusively used before the late 1800s, after which they were largely superseded by synthetic dyes. Synthetic dyes were widely adopted across various industrial sectors owing to their affordability. However, the production of synthetic dyes has harmful effects on the environment, such as the release of waste into water bodies. The simple extraction and application processes for natural dyes generally involves fewer chemicals and less energy compared to synthetic dyes.
Natural dyes also carry cultural and historical significance. Indigenous communities have long used plant dyes for body decoration and dyeing traditional garments, harnessing the colours contained within their local flora. As well as being visually striking, plant dyes often carry symbolic meanings and stories unique to each community and provide a connection to a long history of plant knowledge.
Here at the Botanic Garden, we grow a range of plants that can be used to extract dyes. Some have a history of use as dye plants, whilst others are only now being explored for their potential dye properties.
Download the Dyes from Plants Trail brochure or map.
Visit the Index Dye Catalogue to find out more information about the plants featured in the trail and many more.
The art of dyeing
Nabil Ali is an artist who specialises in object art, sculpture and organic paint systems. He draws inspiration from historical manuscripts containing recipes used by painters and illuminators, particularly those involving the extraction of dyes from plants. Through his research, he creates site-specific conceptual art installations. As Artist-in-Residence 2023/24 at the Garden, Nabil is working on an online Index Dye Catalogue aimed at offering historical and technical insights into organic paint systems. The dye colours featured in this trail have been made by Nabil using plants from the Garden during his residency, which is supported by Arts Council England.
Plant dyes in art
Madder is one of the most lightfast natural dyes and has been used for thousands of years. The fleshy roots produce a variety of red dyes, which have a characteristic orange fluorescence under UV light. This characteristic was used by researchers at the Hamilton-Kerr Institute and Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge to identify the use of madder in a Roman period mummy portrait exhibited at the Fitzwilliam Museum. The portrait is of a young girl named Didyma or Didyme, meaning twin, probably from Antinoopolis, Egypt. The madder, which was the Romano-Egyptian red pigment of choice, was used to decorate the two red stripes or clavi that the child is wearing, just as madder would have been used to dye the tunic in real life. The tunic is like the type a boy would wear and the clavi indicative of Roman citizenship, although the name (both Didyme and Didyma) is that of a girl.
Image: Mummy Trappings. Painted wooden mummy portrait of Didyma. An inscription in Greek indicates that the owner of this portrait was a girl named ‘Didyma’ who was seven years of age when she died. Egypt. Painted in encaustic and tempera on sycamore wood, depth 1.5 cm, height 34.8 cm, width 19.2 cm, A.D. 180-200. Roman Period. E.5.1981
Photograph © The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.
