What is this ?

[annie8]

I have a lot of this plant in my garden. We ripped loads out when we were clearing the old garden but it just keeps coming back. Noticed today more around the side of the greenhouse. Not a big problem just curious

[lottie dolly]

looks like borage,it is a bit of a thug,and bighty hairys,

[veggiechicken]

I think its Green Alkanet - one of the Borage family.

Alkanet (Green) / Green Alkanet - Wild Flower Finder

[nickdub]

absolutely VC - gave its name to henna, which it is used to produce the brown dye.

[veggiechicken]

Alkanet - Henna - obvious connection.

[Thelma Sanders]

Henna? don't think so *confused*

"Dyeing with Alkanet
The alkanet dye, Alkannin, produced from dried alkanet roots, produces lavender and purple colours when simmered in water"

[veggiechicken]

Its for Blue rinses for the older lady (not us young uns)

[nickdub]

Alkanet - Henna - obvious connection.

I don't know the lack of education these days is shocking :-)

from Old Spanish alcaneta, diminutive of alcana, "henna", from Medieval Latin alchanna, from Arabic al-ḥinnā', "henna" : al-: "the" + ḥinnā', "henna".

so in essence Alkanet = Al henna = the henna

when people were mostly illiterate words went by sounds not spelling.


How easily did a "narange" from Spanish become an orange in English for example ? - when most people had never seen the word written down.

"Originally from South and East Asia, oranges were known in Sanskrit as naranga. This became the Persian narang, which became the Arabic naranj. Arabic traders brought oranges to Spain, which led to the Spanish naranja"

[annie8]

Wow and I only asked what the plant was. No plans to dye my hair with it any time soon !

[nickdub]

can be used for clothes dying and/or temporary tattoos, like the Indian hand painting ones I believe :-)

[Guest]

absolutely VC - gave its name to henna, which it is used to produce the brown dye.

Or the hina tree gave it's name to henna. Good old wiki

Lawsonia inermis, also known as hina, the henna tree, the mignonette tree, and the Egyptian privet,[3] is a flowering plant and the sole species of the genus Lawsonia. It is the source of the dye henna used to dye skin, hair and fingernails, as well as fabrics including silk, wool and leather.

[Thelma Sanders]

Would that be just be Dyer's Alkanet (tinctoria), nick, or can all the Alkanet varieties be used this way?

[Mitzi]

So if I want to try dyeing with it, I dig up the plant, stick the roots in the dehydrator, then what? Grind them to a powder then boil it up in water? Cut them into slices? Boil them up whole?

I'd quite like to try this actually. Did you know you can get a lovely pinky colour from avocado stones?

[nickdub]

Not sure to be honest - unless you can find a web site where some one has tried it, I reckon a bit of trial and error will be needed - if using for cloth, some sort of mordant to help fix the dye might be needed.

Mitzi has outlined what sounds like a sensible staring method - given the power of the Internet it would be surprising if someone somewhere hasn't given it a go and reported on results.

[Ocelot]

I have that Alkanet all over my garden - hard to get rid of.